Anthony N. Price1, Shaihan J. Malik1,
Kathryn M. Broadhouse1, Francesco Padormo1, Giuliana Durighel1,
David J. Cox1, A. David Edwards1, Alan M. Groves1,
Jo V. Hajnal1
1Robert Steiner MRI Unit,
Imaging Sciences Department, MRC Clinical Sciences Centre, Hammersmith
Hospital, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom
Cardiac MRI has the scope to significantly advance understanding of circulatory function in newborn infants. Previously, image quality in these infants has been degraded by respiratory and whole body motion since infants are not sedated or anesthetised during scanning. In this study imaging was performed with monitoring of respiratory and whole body motion using a pressure sensor placed on the abdominal wall. Real time SSFP imaging was utilised to demonstrate that abdominal pressure sensing accurately predicts diaphragmatic position. Rejection and binning of k-space data according to whole body motion and respiratory phase produced significant improvements in cine SSFP image quality.