Abstract #1241

ECGtriggering Improves Blood Suppression in Abdominal Aortic Imaging using the Quadruple Inversion Recovery Sequence.

Sarah Anne Peel¹, Tarique Hussain¹, Marina Cecelja², Abeera Abbas³, Gerald Greil¹, Ren M Botnar¹

¹Division of Imaging Sciences & Biomedical Engineering, King's College London, London, United Kingdom; ²NIHR Comprehensive Biomedical Research Centre, Guy's & St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust / King's College London, United Kingdom; ³Academic Department of Surgery, Cardiovascular Division, King's College London, United Kingdom

The quadruple inversion recovery (QIR) pre-pulse was originally developed for carotid vessel wall imaging without cardiac triggering. As aortic blood flow varies considerably during the cardiac cycle, we hypothesize that ECG-triggering may improve blood suppression when applying the QIR sequence in the aorta. The QIR pre-pulse was successfully combined with ECG-triggering and small FOV 'zoom' imaging to accelerate the scan time without fold over artifacts. The zoom QIR-TSE sequence was used to image the abdominal aorta in volunteers both before and after contrast administration. The ECG-triggered QIR images show improved blood suppression and image quality compared to un-triggered scans.