Matteo
Milanesi1, Luca Marinelli2, Christopher J. Hardy2,
Vincenzo Positano1, Piergiorgio Masci1, Andrea Barison1,
Maria F. Santarelli3, Luigi Landini4, Massimo Lombardi1,
Thomas K. Foo2
1"G. Monasterio" Foundation,
Pisa, Italy; 2Global Research Center, General Electric, Niskayuna,
NY, United States; 3Institute of Clinical Physiology, National
Research Council, Pisa, Italy; 4Department of Information
Engineering, University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy
In
this work a Cine Inversion Recovery pulse sequence is presented to quantify
T1 values in myocardial delay enhancement studies. FastSPGR with low flip
angle is used to sample the exponential spin relaxation during the first
heart beat following an adiabatic inversion pulse. The subsequent heart beat
is left to allow full T1 recovery. Four patients with suspicion of heart
diseases were enrolled in the study, and acquisition carried out at 1.5T
scanner. Cine-IR showed T1 values higher for viable myocardium than for
non-viable. These and blood pool estimated T1, were found to be close to
those reported in literatures.