Markus Henningsson1, Beth Goddu2, Lois Goepfert2, Kraig V. Kissinger2, Raymond H. Chan2, Reza Razavi1, Rene M. Botnar1, Tobias Schaeffter1, Reza Nezafat2
1Division of Imaging Sciences and Biomedical Engineering, King's College London, London, United Kingdom; 2Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachussets, United States
3D CINE MRI provides functional volumetric coverage of the heart, however problems associated with this approach are poor contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) and high specific absorption rate (SAR). Therefore, 2D CINE is preferred in clinical practice. Here we address the problems associated with 3D CINE by gating the radiofrequency pulses using an external respiratory sensor (bellows) to coincide with the image data acquisition. We evaluate this approach in 5 healthy volunteers. The results show a 50% lower SAR and higher CNR and signal-to-noise ratio, comparable to 2D CINE, as switching off the RF allows for T1 recovery of the tissue.