Non-Contrast Enhanced Pulmonary Vein MRA with a Spatially Selective Inversion Preparation Sequence

Peng Hu¹, Michael L. Chuang, Thomas H. Hauser, Kraig V. Kissinger, Beth Goddu, Lois A. Goepfert, Neil M. Rofsky², Warren J. Manning, Reza Nezafat

We propose a non-contrast-enhanced free-breathing ECG-gated gradient-echo sequence with a sagittal slab-selective inversion for pulmonary vein (PV) MRA. The inversion pulse was applied to suppress structures adjacent to the left atrium (LA) and PVs, thereby, improving the conspicuity of the PV/LA. The inversion slab thickness and inversion time were optimized on volunteers to be 60mm and 500ms, respectively. The proposed technique significantly increased the CNR between the LA/PV and adjacent structures by 4-20 fold with minimal loss of signal in LA/PV. The PV size measurements of the proposed technique correlated well with clinical contrast-enhanced MRA on 9 atrial fibrillation patients.