Very High Temporal Resolution (<10 Ms) Cine-EPI for Myocardial Tagging Is Feasible and Has More Persistent Tag Lines Than a Conventional Gradient Echo Sequence

Jordin Daniel Green^1,2, Renate Jerecic³, Andreas Kumar², Oliver Strohm², Sonia Nielles-Vallespin⁴, Sven Zuehlsdorff³

Cine imaging with myocardial tagging is an important clinical tool for the evaluation of ventricular performance. Tagging sequences must have high temporal resolution to detect subtle wall motion defects and also have tags which are preserved for as long as possible during the cardiac cycle. We developed a cine-EPI sequence with a high temporal resolution (<10 ms). Using simulations and in vivo experiments, we demonstrated that, when compared to a tagged cine-GRE sequence, image quality is maintained for the cine-EPI sequence, but there is a statistically significant improvement in tag duration (GRE: 45648 ms; EPI: 53064).