1
|
Allen JJ, Keegan J, Mathew G, Conway M, Jenkins S, Pennell DJ, Nielles-Vallespin S, Gatehouse P, Babu-Narayan SV. Fully-modelled blood-focused variable inversion times for 3D late gadolinium-enhanced imaging. Magn Reson Imaging 2023; 98:44-54. [PMID: 36581215 DOI: 10.1016/j.mri.2022.12.014] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/01/2022] [Revised: 12/20/2022] [Accepted: 12/23/2022] [Indexed: 12/27/2022]
Abstract
PURPOSE Variable heart rate during single-cycle inversion-recovery Late Gadolinium-Enhanced (LGE) scanning degrades image quality, which can be mitigated using Variable Inversion Times (VTIs) in real-time response to R-R interval changes. We investigate in vivo and in simulations an extension of a single-cycle VTI method previously applied in 3D LGE imaging, that now fully models the longitudinal magnetisation (fmVTI). METHODS The VTI and fmVTI methods were used to perform 3D LGE scans for 28 3D LGE patients, with qualitative image quality scores assigned for left atrial wall clarity and total ghosting. Accompanying simulations of numerical phantom images were assessed in terms of ghosting of normal myocardium, blood, and myocardial scar. RESULTS The numerical simulations for fmVTI showed a significant decrease in blood ghosting (VTI: 410 ± 710, fmVTI: 68 ± 40, p < 0.0005) and scar ghosting (VTI: 830 ± 1300, fmVTI: 510 ± 730, p < 0.02). Despite this, there was no significant change in qualitative image quality scores, either for left atrial wall clarity (VTI: 2.0 ± 1.0, fmVTI: 1.8 ± 1.0, p > 0.1) or for total ghosting (VTI: 1.9 ± 1.0, fmVTI: 2.0 ± 1.0, p > 0.7). CONCLUSIONS Simulations indicated reduced ghosting with the fmVTI method, due to reduced Mz variability in the blood signal. However, other sources of phase-encode ghosting and blurring appeared to dominate and obscure this finding in the patient studies available.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Jack J Allen
- National Heart and Lung Institute, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom; Royal Brompton Hospital. Part of Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust, London, United Kingdom
| | - Jennifer Keegan
- National Heart and Lung Institute, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom; Royal Brompton Hospital. Part of Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust, London, United Kingdom
| | - George Mathew
- Royal Brompton Hospital. Part of Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust, London, United Kingdom
| | - Miriam Conway
- National Heart and Lung Institute, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom; Royal Brompton Hospital. Part of Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust, London, United Kingdom
| | - Sophie Jenkins
- National Heart and Lung Institute, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom; Royal Brompton Hospital. Part of Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust, London, United Kingdom
| | - Dudley J Pennell
- National Heart and Lung Institute, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom; Royal Brompton Hospital. Part of Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust, London, United Kingdom
| | - Sonia Nielles-Vallespin
- National Heart and Lung Institute, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom; Royal Brompton Hospital. Part of Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust, London, United Kingdom
| | - Peter Gatehouse
- National Heart and Lung Institute, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom; Royal Brompton Hospital. Part of Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust, London, United Kingdom.
| | - Sonya V Babu-Narayan
- National Heart and Lung Institute, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom; Royal Brompton Hospital. Part of Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust, London, United Kingdom
| |
Collapse
|
2
|
Rashid I, Ginami G, Nordio G, Fotaki A, Neji R, Alam H, Pushparajah K, Frigiola A, Valverde I, Botnar RM, Prieto C. Magnetization Transfer BOOST Noncontrast Angiography Improves Pulmonary Vein Imaging in Adults With Congenital Heart Disease. J Magn Reson Imaging 2023; 57:521-531. [PMID: 35642573 PMCID: PMC10084321 DOI: 10.1002/jmri.28280] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/16/2022] [Revised: 05/14/2022] [Accepted: 05/17/2022] [Indexed: 01/20/2023] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND Cardiac MRI plays an important role in the diagnosis and follow-up of patients with congenital heart disease (CHD). Gadolinium-based contrast agents are often needed to overcome flow-related and off-resonance artifacts that can impair the quality of conventional noncontrast 3D imaging. As serial imaging is often required in CHD, the development of robust noncontrast 3D MRI techniques is desirable. PURPOSE To assess the clinical utility of noncontrast enhanced magnetization transfer and inversion recovery prepared 3D free-breathing sequence (MTC-BOOST) compared to conventional 3D whole heart imaging in patients with CHD. STUDY TYPE Prospective, image quality. POPULATION A total of 27 adult patients (44% female, mean age 30.9 ± 14.8 years) with CHD. FIELD STRENGTH/SEQUENCE A 1.5 T; free-breathing 3D MTC-BOOST sequence. ASSESSMENT MTC-BOOST was compared to diaphragmatic navigator-gated, noncontrast T2 prepared 3D whole-heart imaging sequence (T2prep-3DWH) for comparison of vessel dimensions, lumen-to-myocardium contrast ratio (CR), and image quality (vessel wall sharpness and presence and type of artifacts) assessed by two experienced cardiologists on a 5-point scale. STATISTICAL TESTS Mann-Whitney test, paired Wilcoxon signed-rank test, Bland-Altman plots. P < 0.05 was considered statistically significant. RESULTS MTC-BOOST significantly improved image quality and CR of the right-sided pulmonary veins (PV): (CR: right upper PV 1.06 ± 0.50 vs. 0.58 ± 0.74; right lower PV 1.32 ± 0.38 vs. 0.81 ± 0.73) compared to conventional T2prep-3DWH imaging where the PVs were not visualized in some cases due to off-resonance effects. MTC-BOOST demonstrated resistance to degradation of luminal signal (assessed by CR) secondary to accelerated or turbulent flow conditions. T2prep-3DWH had higher image quality scores than MTC-BOOST for the aorta and coronary arteries; however, great vessel dimensions derived from MTC-BOOST showed excellent agreement with standard T2prep-3DWH imaging. DATA CONCLUSION MTC-BOOST allows for improved contrast-free imaging of pulmonary veins and regions characterized by accelerated or turbulent blood flow compared to standard T2prep-3DWH imaging, with excellent agreement of great vessel dimensions. EVIDENCE LEVEL 1 TECHNICAL EFFICACY: Stage 2.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Imran Rashid
- School of Biomedical Engineering and Imaging Sciences, King's College London, London, UK.,School of Medicine, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio, USA
| | - Giulia Ginami
- School of Biomedical Engineering and Imaging Sciences, King's College London, London, UK
| | - Giovanna Nordio
- School of Biomedical Engineering and Imaging Sciences, King's College London, London, UK
| | - Anastasia Fotaki
- School of Biomedical Engineering and Imaging Sciences, King's College London, London, UK
| | - Radhouene Neji
- MR Research Collaborations, Siemens Healthcare Limited, Frimley, UK
| | - Harith Alam
- Guy's and St Thomas' Hospital, Department of Cardiology, London, UK
| | - Kuberan Pushparajah
- School of Biomedical Engineering and Imaging Sciences, King's College London, London, UK.,Guy's and St Thomas' Hospital, Department of Cardiology, London, UK
| | | | - Israel Valverde
- School of Biomedical Engineering and Imaging Sciences, King's College London, London, UK.,Paediatric Cardiology Unit, Hospital Virgen del Rocio and Institute of Biomedicine of Seville, IBIS Ciber-CV, Seville, Spain
| | - René M Botnar
- School of Biomedical Engineering and Imaging Sciences, King's College London, London, UK
| | - Claudia Prieto
- School of Biomedical Engineering and Imaging Sciences, King's College London, London, UK
| |
Collapse
|
3
|
Peters AA, Wagner B, Spano G, Haupt F, Ebner L, Kunze KP, Schmidt M, Neji R, Botnar R, Prieto C, Jung B, Christe A, Gräni C, Huber AT. Myocardial scar detection in free-breathing Dixon-based fat- and water-separated 3D inversion recovery late-gadolinium enhancement whole heart MRI. Int J Cardiovasc Imaging 2023; 39:135-144. [PMID: 36598693 PMCID: PMC9813059 DOI: 10.1007/s10554-022-02701-0] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/14/2022] [Accepted: 07/22/2022] [Indexed: 01/09/2023]
Abstract
The aim of this study was to investigate the diagnostic accuracy and reader confidence for late-gadolinium enhancement (LGE) detection of a novel free-breathing, image-based navigated 3D whole-heart LGE sequence with fat-water separation, compared to a free-breathing motion-corrected 2D LGE sequence in patients with ischemic and non-ischemic cardiomyopathy. Cardiac MRI patients including the respective sequences were retrospectively included. Two independent, blinded readers rated image quality, depiction of segmental LGE and documented acquisition time, SNR, CNR and amount of LGE. Results were compared using the Friedman or the Kruskal-Wallis test. For LGE rating, a jackknife free-response receiver operating characteristic analysis was performed with a figure of merit (FOM) calculation. Forty-two patients were included, thirty-two were examined with a 1.5 T-scanner and ten patients with a 3 T-scanner. The mean acquisition time of the 2D sequence was significantly shorter compared to the 3D sequence (07:12 min vs. 09:24 min; p < 0.001). The 3D scan time was significantly shorter when performed at 3 T compared to 1.5 T (07:47 min vs. 09:50 min; p < 0.001). There were no differences regarding SNR, CNR or amount of LGE. 3D imaging had a significantly higher FOM (0.89 vs. 0.78; p < 0.001). Overall image quality ratings were similar, but 3D sequence ratings were higher for fine anatomical structures. Free-breathing motion-corrected 3D LGE with high isotropic resolution results in enhanced LGE-detection with higher confidence and better delineation of fine structures. The acquisition time for 3D imaging was longer, but may be reduced by performing on a 3 T-scanner.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Alan A Peters
- Department of Diagnostic, Interventional and Pediatric Radiology, Inselspital, Bern University Hospital, University of Bern, Freiburgstrasse, 3010, Bern, Switzerland.
| | - Benedikt Wagner
- Department of Diagnostic, Interventional and Pediatric Radiology, Inselspital, Bern University Hospital, University of Bern, Freiburgstrasse, 3010, Bern, Switzerland
| | - Giancarlo Spano
- Department of Cardiology, Inselspital, Bern University Hospital, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland
| | - Fabian Haupt
- Department of Diagnostic, Interventional and Pediatric Radiology, Inselspital, Bern University Hospital, University of Bern, Freiburgstrasse, 3010, Bern, Switzerland
| | - Lukas Ebner
- Department of Diagnostic, Interventional and Pediatric Radiology, Inselspital, Bern University Hospital, University of Bern, Freiburgstrasse, 3010, Bern, Switzerland
| | | | - Michaela Schmidt
- Cardiovascular MR Predevelopment, Siemens Healthcare GmbH, Erlangen, Germany
| | - Radhouene Neji
- MR Research Collaborations, Siemens Healthcare Limited, Frimley, UK
- School of Biomedical Engineering and Imaging Sciences, King's College London, St Thomas' Hospital, London, UK
| | - René Botnar
- School of Biomedical Engineering and Imaging Sciences, King's College London, St Thomas' Hospital, London, UK
| | - Claudia Prieto
- School of Biomedical Engineering and Imaging Sciences, King's College London, St Thomas' Hospital, London, UK
| | - Bernd Jung
- Department of Diagnostic, Interventional and Pediatric Radiology, Inselspital, Bern University Hospital, University of Bern, Freiburgstrasse, 3010, Bern, Switzerland
| | - Andreas Christe
- Department of Diagnostic, Interventional and Pediatric Radiology, Inselspital, Bern University Hospital, University of Bern, Freiburgstrasse, 3010, Bern, Switzerland
| | - Christoph Gräni
- Department of Cardiology, Inselspital, Bern University Hospital, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland
| | - Adrian T Huber
- Department of Diagnostic, Interventional and Pediatric Radiology, Inselspital, Bern University Hospital, University of Bern, Freiburgstrasse, 3010, Bern, Switzerland.
| |
Collapse
|
4
|
Holtackers RJ, Emrich T, Botnar RM, Kooi ME, Wildberger JE, Kreitner KF. Late Gadolinium Enhancement Cardiac Magnetic Resonance Imaging: From Basic Concepts to Emerging Methods. ROFO-FORTSCHR RONTG 2022; 194:491-504. [PMID: 35196714 DOI: 10.1055/a-1718-4355] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/19/2022]
Abstract
BACKGROUND Late gadolinium enhancement (LGE) is a widely used cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technique to diagnose a broad range of ischemic and non-ischemic cardiomyopathies. Since its development and validation against histology already more than two decades ago, the clinical utility of LGE and its span of applications have increased considerably. METHODS In this review we will present the basic concepts of LGE imaging and its diagnostic and prognostic value, elaborate on recent developments and emerging methods, and finally discuss future prospects. RESULTS Continuous developments in 3 D imaging methods, motion correction techniques, water/fat-separated imaging, dark-blood methods, and scar quantification improved the performance and further expanded the clinical utility of LGE imaging. CONCLUSION LGE imaging is the current noninvasive reference standard for the assessment of myocardial viability. Improvements in spatial resolution, scar-to-blood contrast, and water/fat-separated imaging further strengthened its position. KEY POINTS · LGE MRI is the reference standard for the noninvasive assessment of myocardial viability. · LGE MRI is used to diagnose a broad range of non-ischemic cardiomyopathies in everyday clinical practice.. · Improvements in spatial resolution and scar-to-blood contrast further strengthened its position. · Continuous developments improve its performance and further expand its clinical utility. CITATION FORMAT · Holtackers RJ, Emrich T, Botnar RM et al. Late Gadolinium Enhancement Cardiac Magnetic Resonance Imaging: From Basic Concepts to Emerging Methods. Fortschr Röntgenstr 2022; DOI: 10.1055/a-1718-4355.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Robert J Holtackers
- Cardiovascular Research Institute Maastricht (CARIM), Maastricht University, the Netherlands.,Department of Radiology & Nuclear Medicine, Maastricht University Medical Centre, the Netherlands.,School of Biomedical Engineering & Imaging Sciences, King's College London, United Kingdom
| | - Tilman Emrich
- Department of Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology, University Medical Center Mainz, Germany.,German Center for Cardiovascular Research (DZHK), Partner Site Rhine Main, Mainz, Germany.,Department of Radiology and Radiological Science, Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, SC, USA
| | - René M Botnar
- School of Biomedical Engineering & Imaging Sciences, King's College London, United Kingdom.,Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Escuela de Ingeniería, Santiago, Chile
| | - M Eline Kooi
- Cardiovascular Research Institute Maastricht (CARIM), Maastricht University, the Netherlands.,Department of Radiology & Nuclear Medicine, Maastricht University Medical Centre, the Netherlands
| | - Joachim E Wildberger
- Cardiovascular Research Institute Maastricht (CARIM), Maastricht University, the Netherlands.,Department of Radiology & Nuclear Medicine, Maastricht University Medical Centre, the Netherlands
| | - K-F Kreitner
- Department of Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology, University Medical Center Mainz, Germany
| |
Collapse
|
5
|
Chen J, Zhang H, Mohiaddin R, Wong T, Firmin D, Keegan J, Yang G. Adaptive Hierarchical Dual Consistency for Semi-Supervised Left Atrium Segmentation on Cross-Domain Data. IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MEDICAL IMAGING 2022; 41:420-433. [PMID: 34534077 DOI: 10.1109/tmi.2021.3113678] [Citation(s) in RCA: 17] [Impact Index Per Article: 8.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/13/2023]
Abstract
Semi-supervised learning provides great significance in left atrium (LA) segmentation model learning with insufficient labelled data. Generalising semi-supervised learning to cross-domain data is of high importance to further improve model robustness. However, the widely existing distribution difference and sample mismatch between different data domains hinder the generalisation of semi-supervised learning. In this study, we alleviate these problems by proposing an Adaptive Hierarchical Dual Consistency (AHDC) for the semi-supervised LA segmentation on cross-domain data. The AHDC mainly consists of a Bidirectional Adversarial Inference module (BAI) and a Hierarchical Dual Consistency learning module (HDC). The BAI overcomes the difference of distributions and the sample mismatch between two different domains. It mainly learns two mapping networks adversarially to obtain two matched domains through mutual adaptation. The HDC investigates a hierarchical dual learning paradigm for cross-domain semi-supervised segmentation based on the obtained matched domains. It mainly builds two dual-modelling networks for mining the complementary information in both intra-domain and inter-domain. For the intra-domain learning, a consistency constraint is applied to the dual-modelling targets to exploit the complementary modelling information. For the inter-domain learning, a consistency constraint is applied to the LAs modelled by two dual-modelling networks to exploit the complementary knowledge among different data domains. We demonstrated the performance of our proposed AHDC on four 3D late gadolinium enhancement cardiac MR (LGE-CMR) datasets from different centres and a 3D CT dataset. Compared to other state-of-the-art methods, our proposed AHDC achieved higher segmentation accuracy, which indicated its capability in the cross-domain semi-supervised LA segmentation.
Collapse
|
6
|
Chen J, Yang G, Khan H, Zhang H, Zhang Y, Zhao S, Mohiaddin R, Wong T, Firmin D, Keegan J. JAS-GAN: Generative Adversarial Network Based Joint Atrium and Scar Segmentations on Unbalanced Atrial Targets. IEEE J Biomed Health Inform 2022; 26:103-114. [PMID: 33945491 DOI: 10.1109/jbhi.2021.3077469] [Citation(s) in RCA: 24] [Impact Index Per Article: 12.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/09/2022]
Abstract
Automated and accurate segmentations of left atrium (LA) and atrial scars from late gadolinium-enhanced cardiac magnetic resonance (LGE CMR) images are in high demand for quantifying atrial scars. The previous quantification of atrial scars relies on a two-phase segmentation for LA and atrial scars due to their large volume difference (unbalanced atrial targets). In this paper, we propose an inter-cascade generative adversarial network, namely JAS-GAN, to segment the unbalanced atrial targets from LGE CMR images automatically and accurately in an end-to-end way. Firstly, JAS-GAN investigates an adaptive attention cascade to automatically correlate the segmentation tasks of the unbalanced atrial targets. The adaptive attention cascade mainly models the inclusion relationship of the two unbalanced atrial targets, where the estimated LA acts as the attention map to adaptively focus on the small atrial scars roughly. Then, an adversarial regularization is applied to the segmentation tasks of the unbalanced atrial targets for making a consistent optimization. It mainly forces the estimated joint distribution of LA and atrial scars to match the real ones. We evaluated the performance of our JAS-GAN on a 3D LGE CMR dataset with 192 scans. Compared with the state-of-the-art methods, our proposed approach yielded better segmentation performance (Average Dice Similarity Coefficient (DSC) values of 0.946 and 0.821 for LA and atrial scars, respectively), which indicated the effectiveness of our proposed approach for segmenting unbalanced atrial targets.
Collapse
|
7
|
Evaluation of accelerated motion-compensated 3d water/fat late gadolinium enhanced MR for atrial wall imaging. MAGNETIC RESONANCE MATERIALS IN PHYSICS BIOLOGY AND MEDICINE 2021; 34:877-887. [PMID: 34165670 PMCID: PMC8578113 DOI: 10.1007/s10334-021-00935-y] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/19/2021] [Revised: 05/28/2021] [Accepted: 06/03/2021] [Indexed: 12/26/2022]
Abstract
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.
Collapse
|
8
|
Munoz C, Bustin A, Neji R, Kunze KP, Forman C, Schmidt M, Hajhosseiny R, Masci PG, Zeilinger M, Wuest W, Botnar RM, Prieto C. Motion-corrected 3D whole-heart water-fat high-resolution late gadolinium enhancement cardiovascular magnetic resonance imaging. J Cardiovasc Magn Reson 2020; 22:53. [PMID: 32684167 PMCID: PMC7370486 DOI: 10.1186/s12968-020-00649-5] [Citation(s) in RCA: 23] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/03/2019] [Accepted: 06/17/2020] [Indexed: 02/08/2023] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND Conventional 2D inversion recovery (IR) and phase sensitive inversion recovery (PSIR) late gadolinium enhancement (LGE) cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR) have been widely incorporated into routine CMR for the assessment of myocardial viability. However, reliable suppression of fat signal, and increased isotropic spatial resolution and volumetric coverage within a clinically feasible scan time remain a challenge. In order to address these challenges, this work proposes a highly efficient respiratory motion-corrected 3D whole-heart water/fat LGE imaging framework. METHODS An accelerated IR-prepared 3D dual-echo acquisition and motion-corrected reconstruction framework for whole-heart water/fat LGE imaging was developed. The acquisition sequence includes 2D image navigators (iNAV), which are used to track the respiratory motion of the heart and enable 100% scan efficiency. Non-rigid motion information estimated from the 2D iNAVs and from the data itself is integrated into a high-dimensional patch-based undersampled reconstruction technique (HD-PROST), to produce high-resolution water/fat 3D LGE images. A cohort of 20 patients with known or suspected cardiovascular disease was scanned with the proposed 3D water/fat LGE approach. 3D water LGE images were compared to conventional breath-held 2D LGE images (2-chamber, 4-chamber and stack of short-axis views) in terms of image quality (1: full diagnostic to 4: non-diagnostic) and presence of LGE findings. RESULTS Image quality was considered diagnostic in 18/20 datasets for both 2D and 3D LGE magnitude images, with comparable image quality scores (2D: 2.05 ± 0.72, 3D: 1.88 ± 0.90, p-value = 0.62) and overall agreement in LGE findings. Acquisition time for isotropic high-resolution (1.3mm3) water/fat LGE images was 8.0 ± 1.4 min (3-fold acceleration, 60-88 slices covering the whole heart), while 2D LGE images were acquired in 5.6 ± 2.2 min (12-18 slices, including pauses between breath-holds) albeit with a lower spatial resolution (1.40-1.75 mm in-plane × 8 mm slice thickness). CONCLUSION A novel framework for motion-corrected whole-heart 3D water/fat LGE imaging has been introduced. The method was validated in patients with known or suspected cardiovascular disease, showing good agreement with conventional breath-held 2D LGE imaging, but offering higher spatial resolution, improved volumetric coverage and good image quality from a free-breathing acquisition with 100% scan efficiency and predictable scan time.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Camila Munoz
- School of Biomedical Engineering and Imaging Sciences, King's College London, St Thomas' Hospital, 3rd Floor, Lambeth Wing, London, SE1 7EH, UK.
| | - Aurelien Bustin
- School of Biomedical Engineering and Imaging Sciences, King's College London, St Thomas' Hospital, 3rd Floor, Lambeth Wing, London, SE1 7EH, UK
| | - Radhouene Neji
- School of Biomedical Engineering and Imaging Sciences, King's College London, St Thomas' Hospital, 3rd Floor, Lambeth Wing, London, SE1 7EH, UK
- MR Research Collaborations, Siemens Healthcare, Frimley, UK
| | - Karl P Kunze
- MR Research Collaborations, Siemens Healthcare, Frimley, UK
| | - Christoph Forman
- Cardiovascular MR Predevelopment, Siemens Healthcare GmbH, Erlangen, Germany
| | - Michaela Schmidt
- Cardiovascular MR Predevelopment, Siemens Healthcare GmbH, Erlangen, Germany
| | - Reza Hajhosseiny
- School of Biomedical Engineering and Imaging Sciences, King's College London, St Thomas' Hospital, 3rd Floor, Lambeth Wing, London, SE1 7EH, UK
| | - Pier-Giorgio Masci
- School of Biomedical Engineering and Imaging Sciences, King's College London, St Thomas' Hospital, 3rd Floor, Lambeth Wing, London, SE1 7EH, UK
| | - Martin Zeilinger
- Institute of Radiology, University Hospital Erlangen, Erlangen, Germany
| | - Wolfgang Wuest
- Institute of Radiology, University Hospital Erlangen, Erlangen, Germany
| | - René M Botnar
- School of Biomedical Engineering and Imaging Sciences, King's College London, St Thomas' Hospital, 3rd Floor, Lambeth Wing, London, SE1 7EH, UK
| | - Claudia Prieto
- School of Biomedical Engineering and Imaging Sciences, King's College London, St Thomas' Hospital, 3rd Floor, Lambeth Wing, London, SE1 7EH, UK
| |
Collapse
|
9
|
Henningsson M, Carlhäll CJ. Inflow artifact reduction using an adaptive flip-angle navigator restore pulse for late gadolinium enhancement of the left atrium. Magn Reson Med 2020; 84:3308-3315. [PMID: 32459007 DOI: 10.1002/mrm.28334] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/01/2019] [Revised: 04/29/2020] [Accepted: 05/01/2020] [Indexed: 11/06/2022]
Abstract
PURPOSE Late gadolinium enhancement (LGE) of the left atrium is susceptible to artifacts arising from the right pulmonary veins, caused by inflowing blood tagged by the navigator restore pulse. The purpose of this study was to evaluate a new method to reduce the inflow artifact using an adaptive flip-angle restore pulse. METHODS A low-restore angle reduces the inflow artifact but may lead to a poor navigator SNR. The proposed approach aims to determine the patient-specific restore angle, which optimizes the trade-off between inflow artifacts and navigator SNR. Three-dimensional LGE with adaptive navigator restore (3D LGEA ) was implemented by incrementing the flip angle of the restore pulse from a starting value of 0°, based on the navigator normalized cross-correlation. Magnetic resonance imaging experiments were performed on a 1.5T scanner. The value of 3D LGEA was compared with 3D LGE with a constant 180° restore pulse (3D LGE180 ) in 22 patients with heart diseases. The values of 3D LGEA and 3D LGE180 were compared in terms of pulmonary vein blood signal relative to reference blood in the descending aorta (PVrel ) and visual scoring to determine level of motion artifacts using a 4-point scale (1 = severe artifacts; 4 = no artifacts). RESULTS The value of PVrel was significantly lower for 3D LGEA than for 3D LGE180 (1.16 ± 0.23 vs. 1.59 ± 0.29, P < .001). Furthermore, visual scoring of the motion artifacts yielded no difference (P = .78). CONCLUSION Adaptively adjusting the navigator restore flip angle based on the navigator normalized cross-correlation reduces the 3D LGE inflow artifact without affecting image quality or the scan time.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Markus Henningsson
- Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Department of Medical and Health Sciences, Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden.,Center for Medical Image Science and Visualization (CMIV), Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden.,School of Biomedical Engineering and Imaging Sciences, King's College London, London, United Kingdom
| | - Carl-Johan Carlhäll
- Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Department of Medical and Health Sciences, Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden.,Center for Medical Image Science and Visualization (CMIV), Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden.,Department of Clinical Physiology, Department of Medical and Health Sciences, Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden
| |
Collapse
|
10
|
Ginami G, Lòpez K, Mukherjee RK, Neji R, Munoz C, Roujol S, Mountney P, Razavi R, Botnar RM, Prieto C. Non-contrast enhanced simultaneous 3D whole-heart bright-blood pulmonary veins visualization and black-blood quantification of atrial wall thickness. Magn Reson Med 2019; 81:1066-1079. [PMID: 30230609 PMCID: PMC6492092 DOI: 10.1002/mrm.27472] [Citation(s) in RCA: 13] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/10/2018] [Revised: 07/06/2018] [Accepted: 07/07/2018] [Indexed: 12/21/2022]
Abstract
PURPOSE Pre-interventional assessment of atrial wall thickness (AWT) and of subject-specific variations in the anatomy of the pulmonary veins may affect the success rate of RF ablation procedures for the treatment of atrial fibrillation (AF). This study introduces a novel non-contrast enhanced 3D whole-heart sequence providing simultaneous information on the cardiac anatomy-including both the arterial and the venous system-(bright-blood volume) and AWT (black-blood volume). METHODS The proposed MT-prepared bright-blood and black-blood phase sensitive inversion recovery (PSIR) BOOST framework acquires 2 differently weighted bright-blood volumes in an interleaved fashion. The 2 data sets are then combined in a PSIR-like reconstruction to obtain a complementary black-blood volume for atrial wall visualization. Image-based navigation and non-rigid respiratory motion correction are exploited for 100% scan efficiency and predictable acquisition time. The proposed approach was evaluated in 11 healthy subjects and 4 patients with AF scheduled for RF ablation. RESULTS Improved depiction of the cardiac venous system was obtained in comparison to a T2 -prepared BOOST implementation, and quantified AWT was shown to be in good agreement with previously reported measurements obtained in healthy subjects (right atrium AWT: 2.54 ± 0.87 mm, left atrium AWT: 2.51 ± 0.61 mm). Feasibility for MT-prepared BOOST acquisitions in patients with AF was demonstrated. CONCLUSION The proposed motion-corrected MT-prepared BOOST sequence provides simultaneous non-contrast pulmonary vein depiction as well as black-blood visualization of atrial walls. The proposed sequence has a large spectrum of potential clinical applications and further validation in patients is warranted.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Giulia Ginami
- School of Biomedical Engineering and Imaging SciencesKing’s College LondonLondonUnited Kingdom
| | - Karina Lòpez
- School of Biomedical Engineering and Imaging SciencesKing’s College LondonLondonUnited Kingdom
| | - Rahul K. Mukherjee
- School of Biomedical Engineering and Imaging SciencesKing’s College LondonLondonUnited Kingdom
| | - Radhouene Neji
- School of Biomedical Engineering and Imaging SciencesKing’s College LondonLondonUnited Kingdom
- MR Research Collaborations, Siemens Healthcare LimitedFrimleyUnited Kingdom
| | - Camila Munoz
- School of Biomedical Engineering and Imaging SciencesKing’s College LondonLondonUnited Kingdom
| | - Sébastien Roujol
- School of Biomedical Engineering and Imaging SciencesKing’s College LondonLondonUnited Kingdom
| | - Peter Mountney
- School of Biomedical Engineering and Imaging SciencesKing’s College LondonLondonUnited Kingdom
- Medical Imaging TechnologiesSiemens HealthineersPrincetonNew Jersey
| | - Reza Razavi
- School of Biomedical Engineering and Imaging SciencesKing’s College LondonLondonUnited Kingdom
| | - René M. Botnar
- School of Biomedical Engineering and Imaging SciencesKing’s College LondonLondonUnited Kingdom
- Escuela de IngenieríaPontificia Universidad Católica de ChileSantiagoChile
| | - Claudia Prieto
- School of Biomedical Engineering and Imaging SciencesKing’s College LondonLondonUnited Kingdom
- Escuela de IngenieríaPontificia Universidad Católica de ChileSantiagoChile
| |
Collapse
|
11
|
Advanced Imaging of the Left Atrium with Cardiac Magnetic Resonance: A Review of Current and Emerging Methods and Clinical Applications. CURRENT RADIOLOGY REPORTS 2018. [DOI: 10.1007/s40134-018-0303-7] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/26/2022]
|
12
|
Yang G, Zhuang X, Khan H, Haldar S, Nyktari E, Li L, Wage R, Ye X, Slabaugh G, Mohiaddin R, Wong T, Keegan J, Firmin D. Fully automatic segmentation and objective assessment of atrial scars for long-standing persistent atrial fibrillation patients using late gadolinium-enhanced MRI. Med Phys 2018; 45:1562-1576. [PMID: 29480931 PMCID: PMC5969251 DOI: 10.1002/mp.12832] [Citation(s) in RCA: 33] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/12/2017] [Revised: 02/01/2018] [Accepted: 02/17/2018] [Indexed: 01/18/2023] Open
Abstract
PURPOSE Atrial fibrillation (AF) is the most common heart rhythm disorder and causes considerable morbidity and mortality, resulting in a large public health burden that is increasing as the population ages. It is associated with atrial fibrosis, the amount and distribution of which can be used to stratify patients and to guide subsequent electrophysiology ablation treatment. Atrial fibrosis may be assessed noninvasively using late gadolinium-enhanced (LGE) magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) where scar tissue is visualized as a region of signal enhancement. However, manual segmentation of the heart chambers and of the atrial scar tissue is time consuming and subject to interoperator variability, particularly as image quality in AF is often poor. In this study, we propose a novel fully automatic pipeline to achieve accurate and objective segmentation of the heart (from MRI Roadmap data) and of scar tissue within the heart (from LGE MRI data) acquired in patients with AF. METHODS Our fully automatic pipeline uniquely combines: (a) a multiatlas-based whole heart segmentation (MA-WHS) to determine the cardiac anatomy from an MRI Roadmap acquisition which is then mapped to LGE MRI, and (b) a super-pixel and supervised learning based approach to delineate the distribution and extent of atrial scarring in LGE MRI. We compared the accuracy of the automatic analysis to manual ground truth segmentations in 37 patients with persistent long-standing AF. RESULTS Both our MA-WHS and atrial scarring segmentations showed accurate delineations of cardiac anatomy (mean Dice = 89%) and atrial scarring (mean Dice = 79%), respectively, compared to the established ground truth from manual segmentation. In addition, compared to the ground truth, we obtained 88% segmentation accuracy, with 90% sensitivity and 79% specificity. Receiver operating characteristic analysis achieved an average area under the curve of 0.91. CONCLUSION Compared with previously studied methods with manual interventions, our innovative pipeline demonstrated comparable results, but was computed fully automatically. The proposed segmentation methods allow LGE MRI to be used as an objective assessment tool for localization, visualization, and quantitation of atrial scarring and to guide ablation treatment.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Guang Yang
- Cardiovascular Research CentreRoyal Brompton HospitalLondonSW3 6NPUK
- National Heart and Lung InstituteImperial College LondonLondonSW7 2AZUK
| | - Xiahai Zhuang
- School of Data ScienceFudan UniversityShanghai201203China
| | - Habib Khan
- Cardiovascular Research CentreRoyal Brompton HospitalLondonSW3 6NPUK
| | - Shouvik Haldar
- Cardiovascular Research CentreRoyal Brompton HospitalLondonSW3 6NPUK
| | - Eva Nyktari
- Cardiovascular Research CentreRoyal Brompton HospitalLondonSW3 6NPUK
| | - Lei Li
- Department of Biomedical EngineeringShanghai Jiao Tong UniversityShanghai200240China
| | - Ricardo Wage
- Cardiovascular Research CentreRoyal Brompton HospitalLondonSW3 6NPUK
| | - Xujiong Ye
- School of Computer ScienceUniversity of LincolnLincolnLN6 7TSUK
| | - Greg Slabaugh
- Department of Computer ScienceCity University LondonLondonEC1V 0HBUK
| | - Raad Mohiaddin
- Cardiovascular Research CentreRoyal Brompton HospitalLondonSW3 6NPUK
- National Heart and Lung InstituteImperial College LondonLondonSW7 2AZUK
| | - Tom Wong
- Cardiovascular Research CentreRoyal Brompton HospitalLondonSW3 6NPUK
| | - Jennifer Keegan
- Cardiovascular Research CentreRoyal Brompton HospitalLondonSW3 6NPUK
- National Heart and Lung InstituteImperial College LondonLondonSW7 2AZUK
| | - David Firmin
- Cardiovascular Research CentreRoyal Brompton HospitalLondonSW3 6NPUK
- National Heart and Lung InstituteImperial College LondonLondonSW7 2AZUK
| |
Collapse
|
13
|
Bratis K, Henningsson M, Grigoratos C, Dell’Omodarme M, Chasapides K, Botnar R, Nagel E. 'Image-navigated 3-dimensional late gadolinium enhancement cardiovascular magnetic resonance imaging: feasibility and initial clinical results'. J Cardiovasc Magn Reson 2017; 19:97. [PMID: 29202776 PMCID: PMC5713472 DOI: 10.1186/s12968-017-0418-7] [Citation(s) in RCA: 28] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/08/2017] [Accepted: 11/23/2017] [Indexed: 11/18/2022] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND Image-navigated 3-dimensional late gadolinium enhancement (iNAV-3D LGE) is an advanced imaging technique that allows for direct respiratory motion correction of the heart. Its feasibility in a routine clinical setting has not been validated. METHODS Twenty-three consecutive patients referred for cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR) examination including late gadolinium enhancement (LGE) imaging were prospectively enrolled. Image-navigated free-breathing 3-dimensional (3D) T1-weighted gradient-echo LGE and two-dimensional (2D LGE) images were acquired in random order on a 1.5 T CMR system. Images were assessed for global, segmental LGE detection and transmural extent. Objective image quality including signal-to-noise (SNR), contrast-to-noise (CNR) and myocardial/blood sharpness were performed. RESULTS Interpretable images were obtained in all 2D-LGE and in 22/23 iNAV-3D LGE exams, resulting in a total of 22 datasets and 352 segments. LGE was detected in 5 patients with ischemic pattern, in 7 with non-ischemic pattern, while it was absent in 10 cases. There was an excellent agreement between 2D and 3D data sets with regard to global, segmental LGE detection and transmurality. Blood-myocardium sharpness measurements were also comparable between the two techniques. SNRblood and CNRblood-myo was significantly higher for 2D LGE (P < 0.001, respectively), while SNRmyo was not statistically significant between 2D LGE and iNAV-3D LGE. CONCLUSION Diagnostic performance of iNAV-3D LGE was comparable to 2D LGE in a prospective clinical setting. SNRblood and CNRblood-myo was significantly lower in the iNAV-3D LGE group.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Konstantinos Bratis
- Division of Imaging Sciences and Biomedical Engineering, King’s College London, London, UK
| | - Markus Henningsson
- Division of Imaging Sciences and Biomedical Engineering, King’s College London, London, UK
| | | | | | | | - Rene Botnar
- Division of Imaging Sciences and Biomedical Engineering, King’s College London, London, UK
| | - Eike Nagel
- Institute for Experimental and Translational Cardiovascular Imaging, Frankfurt/Main, Germany
| |
Collapse
|
14
|
Ginami G, Neji R, Rashid I, Chiribiri A, Ismail TF, Botnar RM, Prieto C. 3D whole-heart phase sensitive inversion recovery CMR for simultaneous black-blood late gadolinium enhancement and bright-blood coronary CMR angiography. J Cardiovasc Magn Reson 2017; 19:94. [PMID: 29178893 PMCID: PMC5702978 DOI: 10.1186/s12968-017-0405-z] [Citation(s) in RCA: 28] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/23/2017] [Accepted: 11/06/2017] [Indexed: 12/16/2022] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND Phase sensitive inversion recovery (PSIR) applied to late gadolinium enhancement (LGE) imaging is widely used in clinical practice. However, conventional 2D PSIR LGE sequences provide sub-optimal contrast between scar tissue and blood pool, rendering the detection of subendocardial infarcts and scar segmentation challenging. Furthermore, the acquisition of a low flip angle reference image doubles the acquisition time without providing any additional diagnostic information. The purpose of this study was to develop and test a novel 3D whole-heart PSIR-like framework, named BOOST, enabling simultaneous black-blood LGE assessment and bright-blood visualization of cardiac anatomy. METHODS The proposed approach alternates the acquisition of a 3D volume preceded by a T2-prepared Inversion Recovery (T2Prep-IR) module (magnitude image) with the acquisition of a T2-prepared 3D volume (reference image). The two volumes (T2Prep-IR BOOST and bright-blood T2Prep BOOST) are combined in a PSIR-like reconstruction to obtain a complementary 3D black-blood volume for LGE assessment (PSIR BOOST). The black-blood PSIR BOOST and the bright-blood T2Prep BOOST datasets were compared to conventional clinical sequences for scar detection and coronary CMR angiography (CMRA) in 18 patients with a spectrum of cardiovascular disease (CVD). RESULTS Datasets from 12 patients were quantitatively analysed. The black-blood PSIR BOOST dataset provided statistically improved contrast to noise ratio (CNR) between blood and scar when compared to a clinical 2D PSIR sequence (15.8 ± 3.3 and 4.1 ± 5.6, respectively). Overall agreement in LGE depiction was found between 3D black-blood PSIR BOOST and clinical 2D PSIR acquisitions, with 11/12 PSIR BOOST datasets considered diagnostic. The bright-blood T2Prep BOOST dataset provided high quality depiction of the proximal coronary segments, with improvement of visual score when compared to a clinical CMRA sequence. Acquisition time of BOOST (~10 min), providing information on both LGE uptake and heart anatomy, was comparable to that of a clinical single CMRA sequence. CONCLUSIONS The feasibility of BOOST for simultaneous black-blood LGE assessment and bright-blood coronary angiography was successfully tested in patients with cardiovascular disease. The framework enables free-breathing multi-contrast whole-heart acquisitions with 100% scan efficiency and predictable scan time. Complementary information on 3D LGE and heart anatomy are obtained reducing examination time.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Giulia Ginami
- School of Biomedical Engineering and Imaging Sciences, King’s College London, St Thomas’ Hospital (Lambeth Wing), Westminster Bridge Rd, London, SE1 7EH UK
| | - Radhouene Neji
- School of Biomedical Engineering and Imaging Sciences, King’s College London, St Thomas’ Hospital (Lambeth Wing), Westminster Bridge Rd, London, SE1 7EH UK
- MR Research Collaborations, Siemens Healthcare Limited, Sir William Siemens Square Frimley, Camberley, GU16 8QD UK
| | - Imran Rashid
- School of Biomedical Engineering and Imaging Sciences, King’s College London, St Thomas’ Hospital (Lambeth Wing), Westminster Bridge Rd, London, SE1 7EH UK
| | - Amedeo Chiribiri
- School of Biomedical Engineering and Imaging Sciences, King’s College London, St Thomas’ Hospital (Lambeth Wing), Westminster Bridge Rd, London, SE1 7EH UK
| | - Tevfik F. Ismail
- School of Biomedical Engineering and Imaging Sciences, King’s College London, St Thomas’ Hospital (Lambeth Wing), Westminster Bridge Rd, London, SE1 7EH UK
| | - René M. Botnar
- School of Biomedical Engineering and Imaging Sciences, King’s College London, St Thomas’ Hospital (Lambeth Wing), Westminster Bridge Rd, London, SE1 7EH UK
- Escuela de Ingeniería, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Vicuna Mackenna, 4860 Santiago, Chile
| | - Claudia Prieto
- School of Biomedical Engineering and Imaging Sciences, King’s College London, St Thomas’ Hospital (Lambeth Wing), Westminster Bridge Rd, London, SE1 7EH UK
- Escuela de Ingeniería, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Vicuna Mackenna, 4860 Santiago, Chile
| |
Collapse
|
15
|
Moghari MH, Geva T, Powell AJ. Prospective heart tracking for whole-heart magnetic resonance angiography. Magn Reson Med 2016; 77:759-765. [PMID: 26843458 DOI: 10.1002/mrm.26117] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/04/2015] [Revised: 12/13/2015] [Accepted: 12/16/2015] [Indexed: 11/07/2022]
Abstract
PURPOSE To develop a prospective respiratory-gating technique (Heart-NAV) for use with contrast-enhanced three-dimensional (3D) inversion recovery (IR) whole-heart magnetic resonance angiography (MRA) acquisitions that directly tracks heart motion without creating image inflow artifact. METHODS With Heart-NAV, one of the startup pulses for the whole-heart steady-state free precession MRA sequence is used to collect the centerline of k-space, and its one-dimensional reconstruction is fed into the standard diaphragm-navigator (NAV) signal analysis process to prospectively gate and track respiratory-induced heart displacement. Ten healthy volunteers underwent non-contrast whole-heart MRA acquisitions using the conventional diaphragm-NAV and Heart-NAV with 5 and 10-mm acceptance windows in a 1.5T scanner. Five patients underwent contrast-enhanced IR whole-heart MRA using a diaphragm-NAV and Heart-NAV with a 5-mm acceptance window. RESULTS For non-contrast whole-heart MRA with both the 5 and 10-mm acceptance windows, Heart-NAV yielded coronary artery vessel sharpness and subjective visual scores that were not significantly different than those using a conventional diaphragm-NAV. Scan time for Heart-NAV was 10% shorter (p < 0.05). In patients undergoing contrast-enhanced IR whole-heart MRA, inflow artifact was seen with the diaphragm-NAV but not with Heart-NAV. CONCLUSION Compared with a conventional diaphragm-NAV, Heart-NAV achieves similar image quality in a slightly shorter scan time and eliminates inflow artifact. Magn Reson Med 77:759-765, 2017. © 2016 International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Mehdi H Moghari
- Department of Cardiology, Boston Children's Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.,Department of Pediatrics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
| | - Tal Geva
- Department of Cardiology, Boston Children's Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.,Department of Pediatrics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
| | - Andrew J Powell
- Department of Cardiology, Boston Children's Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.,Department of Pediatrics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
| |
Collapse
|
16
|
Giannakidis A, Nyktari E, Keegan J, Pierce I, Suman Horduna I, Haldar S, Pennell DJ, Mohiaddin R, Wong T, Firmin DN. Rapid automatic segmentation of abnormal tissue in late gadolinium enhancement cardiovascular magnetic resonance images for improved management of long-standing persistent atrial fibrillation. Biomed Eng Online 2015; 14:88. [PMID: 26445883 PMCID: PMC4596471 DOI: 10.1186/s12938-015-0083-8] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/01/2015] [Accepted: 09/21/2015] [Indexed: 01/11/2023] Open
Abstract
Background Atrial fibrillation (AF) is the most common heart rhythm disorder. In order for late Gd enhancement cardiovascular magnetic resonance (LGE CMR) to ameliorate the AF management, the ready availability of the accurate enhancement segmentation is required. However, the computer-aided segmentation of enhancement in LGE CMR of AF is still an open question. Additionally, the number of centres that have reported successful application of LGE CMR to guide clinical AF strategies remains low, while the debate on LGE CMR’s diagnostic ability for AF still holds. The aim of this study is to propose a method that reliably distinguishes enhanced (abnormal) from non-enhanced (healthy) tissue within the left atrial wall of (pre-ablation and 3 months post-ablation) LGE CMR data-sets from long-standing persistent AF patients studied at our centre. Methods Enhancement segmentation was achieved by employing thresholds benchmarked against the statistics of the whole left atrial blood-pool (LABP). The test-set cross-validation mechanism was applied to determine the input feature representation and algorithm that best predict enhancement threshold levels. Results Global normalized intensity threshold levels TPRE = 1 1/4 and TPOST = 1 5/8 were found to segment enhancement in data-sets acquired pre-ablation and at 3 months post-ablation, respectively. The segmentation results were corroborated by using visual inspection of LGE CMR brightness levels and one endocardial bipolar voltage map. The measured extent of pre-ablation fibrosis fell within the normal range for the specific arrhythmia phenotype. 3D volume renderings of segmented post-ablation enhancement emulated the expected ablation lesion patterns. By comparing our technique with other related approaches that proposed different threshold levels (although they also relied on reference regions from within the LABP) for segmenting enhancement in LGE CMR data-sets of AF patients, we illustrated that the cut-off levels employed by other centres may not be usable for clinical studies performed in our centre. Conclusions The proposed technique has great potential for successful employment in the AF management within our centre. It provides a highly desirable validation of the LGE CMR technique for AF studies. Inter-centre differences in the CMR acquisition protocol and image analysis strategy inevitably impede the selection of a universally optimal algorithm for segmentation of enhancement in AF studies.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Archontis Giannakidis
- Cardiovascular Biomedical Research Unit, Royal Brompton Hospital, London, UK. .,National Heart and Lung Institute, Imperial College London, London, UK.
| | - Eva Nyktari
- Cardiovascular Biomedical Research Unit, Royal Brompton Hospital, London, UK.
| | - Jennifer Keegan
- Cardiovascular Biomedical Research Unit, Royal Brompton Hospital, London, UK. .,National Heart and Lung Institute, Imperial College London, London, UK.
| | - Iain Pierce
- Cardiovascular Biomedical Research Unit, Royal Brompton Hospital, London, UK. .,National Heart and Lung Institute, Imperial College London, London, UK.
| | - Irina Suman Horduna
- Cardiovascular Biomedical Research Unit, Royal Brompton Hospital, London, UK.
| | - Shouvik Haldar
- Cardiovascular Biomedical Research Unit, Royal Brompton Hospital, London, UK.
| | - Dudley J Pennell
- Cardiovascular Biomedical Research Unit, Royal Brompton Hospital, London, UK. .,National Heart and Lung Institute, Imperial College London, London, UK.
| | - Raad Mohiaddin
- Cardiovascular Biomedical Research Unit, Royal Brompton Hospital, London, UK.
| | - Tom Wong
- Cardiovascular Biomedical Research Unit, Royal Brompton Hospital, London, UK.
| | - David N Firmin
- Cardiovascular Biomedical Research Unit, Royal Brompton Hospital, London, UK. .,National Heart and Lung Institute, Imperial College London, London, UK.
| |
Collapse
|
17
|
Roujol S, Foppa M, Basha TA, Akçakaya M, Kissinger KV, Goddu B, Berg S, Nezafat R. Accelerated free breathing ECG triggered contrast enhanced pulmonary vein magnetic resonance angiography using compressed sensing. J Cardiovasc Magn Reson 2014; 16:91. [PMID: 25416082 PMCID: PMC4240816 DOI: 10.1186/s12968-014-0091-z] [Citation(s) in RCA: 14] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/04/2014] [Accepted: 11/04/2014] [Indexed: 11/17/2022] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND To investigate the feasibility of accelerated electrocardiogram (ECG)-triggered contrast enhanced pulmonary vein magnetic resonance angiography (CE-PV MRA) with isotropic spatial resolution using compressed sensing (CS). METHODS Nineteen patients (59±13 y, 11 M) referred for MR were scanned using the proposed accelerated free breathing ECG-triggered 3D CE-PV MRA sequence (FOV=340×340×110 mm3, spatial resolution=1.5×1.5×1.5 mm3, acquisition window=140 ms at mid diastole and CS acceleration factor=5) and a conventional first-pass breath-hold non ECG-triggered 3D CE-PV MRA sequence. CS data were reconstructed offline using low-dimensional-structure self-learning and thresholding reconstruction (LOST) CS reconstruction. Quantitative analysis of PV sharpness and subjective qualitative analysis of overall image quality were performed using a 4-point scale (1: poor; 4: excellent). RESULTS Quantitative PV sharpness was increased using the proposed approach (0.73±0.09 vs. 0.51±0.07 for the conventional CE-PV MRA protocol, p<0.001). There were no significant differences in the subjective image quality scores between the techniques (3.32±0.94 vs. 3.53±0.77 using the proposed technique). CONCLUSIONS CS-accelerated free-breathing ECG-triggered CE-PV MRA allows evaluation of PV anatomy with improved sharpness compared to conventional non-ECG gated first-pass CE-PV MRA. This technique may be a valuable alternative for patients in which the first pass CE-PV MRA fails due to inaccurate first pass timing or inability of the patient to perform a 20-25 seconds breath-hold.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Sébastien Roujol
- Department of Medicine (Cardiovascular Division), Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School, 330 Brookline Ave, Boston, MA 02215 USA
| | - Murilo Foppa
- Department of Medicine (Cardiovascular Division), Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School, 330 Brookline Ave, Boston, MA 02215 USA
| | - Tamer A Basha
- Department of Medicine (Cardiovascular Division), Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School, 330 Brookline Ave, Boston, MA 02215 USA
| | - Mehmet Akçakaya
- Department of Medicine (Cardiovascular Division), Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School, 330 Brookline Ave, Boston, MA 02215 USA
| | - Kraig V Kissinger
- Department of Medicine (Cardiovascular Division), Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School, 330 Brookline Ave, Boston, MA 02215 USA
| | - Beth Goddu
- Department of Medicine (Cardiovascular Division), Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School, 330 Brookline Ave, Boston, MA 02215 USA
| | - Sophie Berg
- Department of Medicine (Cardiovascular Division), Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School, 330 Brookline Ave, Boston, MA 02215 USA
| | - Reza Nezafat
- Department of Medicine (Cardiovascular Division), Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School, 330 Brookline Ave, Boston, MA 02215 USA
| |
Collapse
|