Objective

3D late gadolinium enhancement (LGE) imaging is a promising non-invasive technique for the assessment of atrial fibrosis. However, current techniques result in prolonged and unpredictable scan times and high rates of non-diagnostic images. The purpose of this study was to compare the performance of a recently proposed accelerated respiratory motion-compensated 3D water/fat LGE technique with conventional 3D LGE for atrial wall imaging.

Materials and methods

18 patients (age: 55.7±17.1 years) with atrial fibrillation underwent conventional diaphragmatic navigator gated inversion recovery (IR)-prepared 3D LGE (dNAV) and proposed image-navigator motion-corrected water/fat IR-prepared 3D LGE (iNAV) imaging. Images were assessed for image quality and presence of fibrosis by three expert observers. The scan time for both techniques was recorded.

Results

Image quality scores were improved with the proposed compared to the conventional method (iNAV: 3.1 ± 1.0 vs. dNAV: 2.6 ± 1.0, p = 0.0012, with 1: Non-diagnostic to 4: Full diagnostic). Furthermore, scan time for the proposed method was significantly shorter with a 59% reduction is scan time (4.5 ± 1.2 min vs. 10.9 ± 3.9 min, p < 0.0001). The images acquired with the proposed method were deemed as inconclusive less frequently than the conventional images (expert 1/expert 2: 4/7 dNAV and 2/4 iNAV images inconclusive).

Discussion

The motion-compensated water/fat LGE method enables atrial wall imaging with diagnostic quality comparable to the current conventional approach with a significantly shorter scan of about 5 min.

中文翻译：

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加速运动补偿 3d 水/脂肪晚期钆增强 MR 用于心房壁成像的评估

客观的

3D 晚期钆增强 (LGE) 成像是一种用于评估心房纤维化的有前途的非侵入性技术。然而，当前的技术会导致扫描时间延长且不可预测，并且出现高比率的非诊断图像。本研究的目的是比较最近提出的加速呼吸运动补偿 3D 水/脂肪 LGE 技术与用于心房壁成像的传统 3D LGE 技术的性能。

材料和方法

18 名房颤患者（年龄：55.7±17.1 岁）接受了传统的膈肌导航门控反转恢复 (IR) 制备的 3D LGE (dNAV) 和建议的图像导航器运动校正水/脂肪 IR 制备的 3D LGE (iNAV) 成像. 由三位专家观察员评估图像的图像质量和纤维化的存在。记录两种技术的扫描时间。

结果

与传统方法相比，建议的图像质量得分有所提高（iNAV：3.1 ± 1.0 与 dNAV：2.6 ± 1.0，p  = 0.0012，其中 1：非诊断到 4：完全诊断）。此外，所提出方法的扫描时间显着缩短，扫描时间减少了 59%（4.5 ± 1.2 分钟对 10.9 ± 3.9 分钟，p  < 0.0001）。与传统图像相比，使用该方法获得的图像被认为不确定的频率较低（专家 1/专家 2：4/7 dNAV 和 2/4 iNAV 图像不确定）。

讨论

运动补偿的水/脂肪 LGE 方法使心房壁成像的诊断质量与当前的传统方法相当，扫描时间明显缩短，约为 5 分钟。