Peter Brnert1, Peter Koken1, Kay Nehrke1, Holger Eggers1, Peter Ostendorf2
1Philips Research Laboratories, Hamburg, Germany; 2Centre of Preventive Medicine, Marienkrankenhaus, Hamburg, Germany
To improve coronary vessel visualization in whole heart CMRA, fat suppression is typically applied. However, recent studies showed that cardiac fat can also have diagnostic value. To address also the fat information two-point Dixon protocols have been proposed to replace fat-sat based protocols for CMRA with no scan time penalty. In this pilot study water / fat-separated Dixon protocols are compared to conventional whole heart CMRA imaging protocols used in clinical practice. It has been found in this patient study that two-point Dixon protocols can potentially replace conventional fat-sat-based protocols for CMRA.