DOI:10.2214/AJR.04.1864
AJR 2006; 186:S401-S406
© American Roentgen Ray Society
MRI of Coronary Vessel Walls Using Radial k-Space Sampling and Steady-State Free Precession Imaging
Marcus Katoh1,
Elmar Spuentrup1,
Arno Buecker1,
Tobias Schaeffter2,
Matthias Stuber3,
Rolf W. Günther1 and
Rene M. Botnar4
1 Department of Diagnostic Radiology, RWTH Aachen University Hospital,
Pauwelsstrasse 30, 52057 Aachen, Germany.
2 Philips Research Laboratories, Hamburg, Germany.
3 Department of Radiology, Division of MRI Research, Johns Hopkins University
Medical School, Baltimore, MD.
4 Department of Medicine, Cardiovascular Division, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical
Center and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA.
Received December 7, 2004;
accepted after revision February 15, 2005.
Supported in part by a Biomedical Engineering Grant from the Whitaker
Foundation (RG-02-0745).
M. Stuber is compensated as a consultant by Philips Medical Systems NL, the
manufacturer of equipment described in this presentation. The terms of this
arrangement have been approved by the Johns Hopkins University in accordance
with its conflict of interest policies.
Address correspondence to M. Katoh
(katoh{at}rad.rwth-aachen.de).
Abstract
OBJECTIVE. The objective of our study was to investigate the impact
of radial k-space sampling and steady-state free precession (SSFP) imaging on
image quality in MRI of coronary vessel walls.
SUBJECTS AND METHODS. Eleven subjects were examined on a 1.5-T MR
system using three high-resolution navigator-gated and cardiac-triggered 3D
black blood sequences (cartesian gradient-echo [GRE], radial GRE, and radial
SSFP) with identical spatial resolution (0.9 x 0.9 x 2.4
mm3). The signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), contrast-to-noise ratio
(CNR), vessel wall sharpness, and motion artifacts were analyzed.
RESULTS. The mean SNR and CNR of the coronary vessel wall were
improved using radial imaging and were best using radial k-space sampling
combined with SSFP imaging. Vessel border definition was similar for all three
sequences. Radial k-space sampling was found to be less sensitive to motion.
Consistently good image quality was seen with the radial GRE sequence.
CONCLUSION. Radial k-space sampling in MRI of coronary vessel walls
resulted in fewer motion artifacts and improved SNR and CNR. The use of SSFP
imaging, however, did not result in improved coronary vessel wall
visualization.
Keywords: angiography arteriosclerosis cardiovascular imaging coronary artery disease hemodynamics MR angiography MRI radial k-space sampling
Introduction
The current diagnostic method of choice for the detection of coronary
artery disease is conventional X-ray angiography. However, X-ray angiography
frequently underestimates the true extent of coronary arteriosclerosis because
it exclusively shows the vessel lumen and provides only limited information
about the coronary plaque burden
[1]. At present, intravascular
sonography is considered the gold standard for visualization of coronary
plaques [2]. This technique,
however, is invasive and is not appropriate for screening or serial
examinations for the assessment of subclinical and advanced
arteriosclerosis.
Several studies have shown the use of breath-hold and navigator-gated black
blood MRI for noninvasive visualization of the coronary vessel wall with good
contrast between the coronary lumen and surrounding tissues
[3,
4]. For routine clinical use,
image quality and the robustness of the technique need to be improved.
Recently, a local reinversion method in combination with spiral data
acquisition that allowed 3D coronary vessel wall imaging with improved
coverage was introduced
[5].
In bright blood coronary MR angiography, steady-state free precession
(SSFP) imaging led to an improved signal-to-noise ratio (SNR)
[6] while radial k-space
sampling has been shown to be less sensitive to motion artifacts
[7]. Both techniques, however,
have not been used for vessel wall imaging to date. The motion sensitivity of
the SSFP technique may differ because of the longer effective acquisition
window (constant k-space weighting). We therefore sought to investigate the
impact of both radial k-space sampling and SSFP sequences on image quality
with special regard to motion artifacts in free-breathing navigator-gated 3D
MRI of the coronary vessel wall.
Subjects and Methods
Subjects
The right coronary artery (RCA) of 11 consecutive subjects (five men, six
women; mean age ± SD, 28 ± 5 years) was scanned with the patient
in the supine position using a 1.5-T whole-body MR system (Gyroscan Intera,
Philips Medical Systems) equipped with a cardiac software package (R8, Philips
Medical Systems) and a five-element cardiac Synergy coil (Philips Medical
Systems). None of the subjects had a history of coronary artery disease, and
the protocol was approved by the institutional board on clinical
investigations. Informed consent was obtained from each subject participating
in this study.
Scout Scanning
A transverse cardiac-triggered cine fast-field echo echo-planar imaging
(EPI) sequence (TE = 9.7 msec, EPI readouts = 7, heart phases = 40) was
performed to visually determine the quiescent period within the cardiac cycle.
The derived trigger delay was used for all subsequent scans, including a fast
navigator-gated cardiac-triggered 3D localizer SSFP sequence with axial slice
orientation, covering the entire heart
[8].
Coronary MR Angiography
Subsequently, a free-breathing navigator-gated and cardiac-triggered bright
blood 3D SSFP coronary angiogram was acquired (TR/TE = 6.1/3.0, excitation
angle = 120°, field of view = 360 mm2)
[9]. For accurate and
reproducible targeting of the RCA, double oblique orientations were prescribed
using a three-point-plan scan tool. Data were acquired using radial k-space
sampling with a 384 x 384 matrix (i.e., 384 radials and 384 samplings).
Before the imaging sequence, five dummy radiofrequency pulses were performed
to allow a smooth and rapid approach toward the steady-state condition. In
addition, a T2-preparation pulse and a fat-saturation prepulse were used to
suppress signal from myocardium and epicardial fat.
MRI of Coronary Vessel Walls
Imaging sequenceCoronary vessel wall imaging was performed
using 3D cartesian gradient-echo (GRE), radial GRE, and radial SSFP imaging
sequences (Fig. 1). Spatial
resolution was identical for all three sequences (field of view = 360 x
360 mm, matrix= 384 x 384, in-plane resolution = 0.9 x 0.9 mm
reconstructed to 0.35 x 0.35 mm using a 1024 x 1024 matrix, twelve
2.4-mm-thick slices reconstructed to twenty-four 1.2-mm-thick slices). The
data acquired with radial k-space sampling were reconstructed by a making a
grid (i.e., the data in k-space were interpolated onto a rectangular grid by
means of a convolution, and a 2D Fourier transform was performed). The imaging
parameters for the sequences were as follows: cartesian GRE sequence, TR/TE of
8.0/2.3, excitation angle of 30°, acquisition window of 64 msec; radial
GRE sequence, 7.1/2.0, excitation angle of 30°, acquisition window of 57
msec; and radial SSFP sequence, 5.3/2.7, excitation angle of 55°,
acquisition window of 42 msec, and five dummy radiofrequency excitations. To
minimize cardiac motion artifacts, only eight profiles were sampled per R-R
interval.

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Fig. 1 Diagram of free-breathing navigator-gated 3D black blood sequences
using cartesian and radial gradient-echo or radial steady-state free
precession (SSFP) imaging. Black blood properties are maintained using double
inversion prepulse consisting of nonselective and selective inversion pulses.
Real-time navigator precedes five preparatory pulses, which are used to
approach steady-state conditions. Epicardial fat saturation is achieved using
spectral inversion (SPIR) pulse. Imaging was performed during mid-diastole,
which is quiescent period in cardiac cycle.
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Radial imaging was performed using a "stack-of-stars" approach
with radial sampling along the x-y direction and centric
phase encoding (Fourier encoding) in the z-direction
[7,
9]. Centric phase encoding in
the z-direction within each R-R interval was chosen to optimize
prepulse efficiency and, thus, contrast, which is essential for the
stack-of-stars approach [7].
Cartesian imaging was performed with centric phase encoding along the
y-direction.
For all sequences, the scanning time was 11 min for a heart rate of 70
beats per minute (bpm).
Black blood prepulseSignal from blood was suppressed using
a modified double-inversion prepulse consisting of a nonselective inversion
pulse immediately followed by a 2D selective reinversion pulse. The 2D pencil
beam was positioned along the RCA. By imaging every other heartbeat, the
inversion time was approximately 600 msec
[10], thereby allowing
sufficient blood exchange and thus good black blood properties. To suppress
signal from the epicardial fat, an additional spectral inversion recovery (IR)
prepulse was applied.
MR navigatorAll sequences were equipped with a right
hemidiaphragmatic prospective real-time navigator for respiratory motion
artifact suppression during free breathing
[11]. Data were accepted if
the lung-liver interface was within the end-expiratory gating window (5 mm) or
otherwise were rejected and reacquired during the subsequent R-R interval.
Data Analysis
Multiplanar reformatting and subsequent subjective and objective image
analyses were performed using a previously described postprocessing tool
[12]. Subjective image quality
was determined on a consensus basis by two observers blinded to sequence
parameters. The observers used two scales from 1 to 3. One scale was for
evaluation of the level of motion artifacts: 1, no visible motion artifacts;
2, moderate artifacts; and 3, pronounced motion artifacts. The second scale
was used to assess image quality: 1, good image quality with sharply defined
vessel wall borders; 2, reduced image quality but vessel wall still visible;
and 3, poor image quality with poor visualization of the coronary vessel wall.
Although motion artifact level was examined in the entire image, image quality
was judged only by the appearance of the right coronary vessel wall.
Signal intensities (SIs) were measured in the aorta (blood) and in
epicardial fat (fat) using user-specified regions of interest (ROIs). In
addition, the signal of the coronary vessel wall (vw) was determined as the
average SI along the centerline of the coronary vessel wall. The SNR of the
coronary vessel wall (SNRvw) was calculated as follows:
where SDnoise refers to the SD of the signal in a region
of air ventral to the chest. The CNR between the coronary vessel wall and
blood signal and the epicardial fat (CNRvw-blood / fat)
was calculated as follows:
Furthermore, the maximal length of the visible vessel wall and the maximal
vessel wall sharpness were assessed on multiplanar reformatted images
[12].

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Fig. 2A Bright blood MR angiography shows right coronary artery of two
healthy volunteers. Radial steady-state free precession (SSFP) image of
31-year-old healthy man shows right coronary artery.
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Fig. 2B Bright blood MR angiography shows right coronary artery of two
healthy volunteers. Scans corresponding to A that were acquired using
cartesian gradient-echo (GRE) (B), radial GRE (C), or radial
SSFP (D) sequences show coronary vessel walls (arrowheads).
Note pronounced motion artifacts (arrows, B) in phase-encoding
direction originating from cardiac motion in cartesian GRE images.
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Fig. 2C Bright blood MR angiography shows right coronary artery of two
healthy volunteers. Scans corresponding to A that were acquired using
cartesian gradient-echo (GRE) (B), radial GRE (C), or radial
SSFP (D) sequences show coronary vessel walls (arrowheads).
Note pronounced motion artifacts (arrows, B) in phase-encoding
direction originating from cardiac motion in cartesian GRE images.
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Fig. 2D Bright blood MR angiography shows right coronary artery of two
healthy volunteers. Scans corresponding to A that were acquired using
cartesian gradient-echo (GRE) (B), radial GRE (C), or radial
SSFP (D) sequences show coronary vessel walls (arrowheads).
Note pronounced motion artifacts (arrows, B) in phase-encoding
direction originating from cardiac motion in cartesian GRE images.
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Fig. 2F Bright blood MR angiography shows right coronary artery of two
healthy volunteers. Scans corresponding to E that were acquired using
cartesian GRE (B), radial GRE (C), or radial SSFP (D)
sequences show coronary vessel walls (arrowheads). Note pronounced
motion artifacts (arrows, F) in phase-encoding direction
originating from cardiac motion in cartesian GRE images.
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Fig. 2G Bright blood MR angiography shows right coronary artery of two
healthy volunteers. Scans corresponding to E that were acquired using
cartesian GRE (B), radial GRE (C), or radial SSFP (D)
sequences show coronary vessel walls (arrowheads). Note pronounced
motion artifacts (arrows, F) in phase-encoding direction
originating from cardiac motion in cartesian GRE images.
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Fig. 2H Bright blood MR angiography shows right coronary artery of two
healthy volunteers. Scans corresponding to E that were acquired using
cartesian GRE (B), radial GRE (C), or radial SSFP (D)
sequences show coronary vessel walls (arrowheads). Note pronounced
motion artifacts (arrows, F) in phase-encoding direction
originating from cardiac motion in cartesian GRE images.
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Statistical Analysis
The results were expressed as geometric means ± 1 SD. For
statistical comparisons, nonparametric methods using statistics software (JMP
Discovery software [version 5.0.1.2], SAS Institute) were applied. The
objective image quality parameters were analyzed with the Wilcoxon's rank sum
test, and for the analysis of the ordinal data, the Pearson's chi-square test
was applied. Differences between groups with a p value of less than
0.05 were considered to be statistically significant.
Results
All three high-resolution MR vessel wall sequences were successfully
completed in all subjects. Representative double oblique MR images of the RCA
vessel wall using all three sequences are shown in Figures
2A,
2B,
2C,
2D,
2E,
2F,
2G, and
2H. The bright coronary vessel
wall is well delineated from the dark-appearing blood and epicardial fat. In
some volunteers, visualization (i.e., image quality score = 3) of the coronary
vessel wall was poor on images obtained using the cartesian GRE (n =
2) and radial SSFP (n = 3) sequences, while sufficient image quality
(i.e., image quality score = 1 or 2) was observed in all volunteers when the
radial GRE sequence was performed (Table
1).
With regard to motion artifacts, radial k-space sampling was superior to
cartesian k-space sampling (Table
1). Cartesian imaging was found to be more susceptible to cardiac
motion, thus resulting in artifacts along the phase-encoding direction (Figs.
2A,
2B,
2C,
2D,
2E,
2F,
2G, and
2H). These visually apparent
artifacts were translated into a higher level of subjective motion artifact
when compared with radial scanning with or without SSFP (p <
0.05).
The SNRvw was superior using the radial SSFP sequence (16.9
± 4.3) compared with the cartesian GRE sequence (12.2 ± 3.7;
p <0.05) (Fig.
3A). The radial GRE images showed intermediate SNRvw
(14.2 ± 4.4; p, not significant [NS]). The best
CNRvw-blood was also seen with radial SSFP imaging (cartesian GRE,
9.6 ± 3.0; radial GRE, 12.0 ± 4.0; radial SSFP, 13.6 ±
4.4), whereas CNRvw-fat was comparable for all three sequences
(cartesian GRE, 9.1 ± 3.9; radial GRE, 8.7 ± 4.0; radial SSFP,
9.1 ± 5.4; p, NS).

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Fig. 3A Analysis of objective image quality parameters for cartesian
gradient-echo (cartGRE, gray bars), radial gradient-echo (radGRE,
black bars), and radial steady-state free precession (radSSFP,
white bars) sequences. Bar graph shows signal-to-noise ratio (SNR)
and contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR). vw = vessel wall.
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Higher SNR and higher CNR values in radial scanning, however, did not
result in better vessel border definition
(Fig. 3B). Objective vessel
sharpness analyses were similar for all three sequences: cartesian GRE, 34.5
± 8.9; radial GRE, 37.6 ± 6.4; radial SSFP, 34.2 ± 4.9
(p, NS). The maximal visible vessel wall length was slightly longer
on images obtained using the radial SSFP sequence (p, NS).

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Fig. 3B Analysis of objective image quality parameters for cartesian
gradient-echo (cartGRE, gray bars), radial gradient-echo (radGRE,
black bars), and radial steady-state free precession (radSSFP,
white bars) sequences. Bar graph shows vessel length and
sharpness.
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Discussion
In this study, we show the successful use of a navigator-gated
cardiac-triggered 3D GRE sequence with radial k-space sampling and a
double-inversion black blood prepulse for imaging of the RCA vessel wall.
Motion Artifacts
Data acquisition using radial k-space sampling showed reduced motion
artifacts and thus improved robustness toward cardiac and respiratory motion.
Using cartesian k-space sampling, ghosting artifacts were observed in the
anteroposterior direction (phase-encoding direction) and originated mainly
from cardiac motion. The anteroposterior phase-encoding direction was chosen
to avoid "back-folding" artifacts. However, the craniocaudal
direction could have also been considered because of the limited sensitivity
of the receiver coils in the foot-head direction. It is conceivable that
scanning in this orientation may have led to an improved sharpness of the
coronary vessel wall because the course of the RCA was nearly perpendicular to
the frequency-encoding direction.
In contrast to cartesian imaging, radial k-space sampling showed only minor
artifacts, which were distributed homogeneously over the entire image,
resulting in an overall lower artifact level. Because of the short TR, radial
k-space sampling is a good nonrectilinear data acquisition candidate for SSFP
imaging. Spiral imaging seems to be less favorable due to the relatively long
TR of one spiral interleave and therefore was not evaluated in this study.
Another reason for the reduced sensitivity of radial imaging to motion may
be the choice of the encoding scheme. Intrashot encoding (Fourier encoding)
was performed in the z-direction, whereas intershot encoding used
radial encoding in the x-y plane. Respiratory motion and
arrhythmias are expected to primarily influence intershot encoding, whereas
cardiac motion is expected to influence intrashot encoding. Surprisingly,
improved motion artifact suppression using radial scanning did not translate
into better objective vessel border definition in our study. In radial
scanning, each k-space line covers the entire k-space, which may result in
different motion sensitivity. Similar vessel sharpness values were found for
all three sequences.
SNR and CNR
The SNR and CNR between the coronary vessel wall and blood were improved
for both radial GRE and radial SSFP coronary vessel wall sequences when
compared with cartesian k-space sampling. To calculate the SNR and CNR, the
noise levels were determined as the SD in user-defined ROIs in the background.
As we mentioned earlier, motion artifacts were distributed homogeneously over
the entire image in radial imaging, resulting in a lower mean artifact level
than with cartesian data sampling, which in part may have contributed to the
increased SNR and CNR in radial imaging.
The use of a nonselective inversion in concert with a pencil-shaped
reinversion black blood prepulse resulted in good signal suppression of the
blood, thereby allowing good delineation of the vessel wall from coronary
blood. In addition, the signal of epicardial fat was suppressed using a
spectral IR prepulse. The potential of SSFP imaging has already been shown for
coronary MR angiography [6] but
has not been investigated for coronary vessel wall imaging. As expected, SSFP
imaging resulted in a higher SNRvw and CNRvw-fat when
compared with spoiled GRE approaches. However, due to the higher spatial
resolution in vessel wall imaging, longer TRs and TEs (TR/TE, 5.3/2.7 compared
with 3.9/1.8 in previous SSFP coronary MR angiography studies)
[6] are required. In addition,
the effective acquisition window setting is prolonged in SSFP imaging due to
the rephrasing of the transverse magnetization and subsequent use during the
next radiofrequency excitation (i.e., constant k-space weighting, resulting in
a narrow point-spread function). This may lead to a higher sensitivity to
off-resonances and motion, thereby potentially degrading the visualization of
the coronary vessel walls.
In conclusion, radial k-space sampling in free-breathing navigator-gated
cardiac-triggered MRI of the coronary vessel wall leads to a reduced motion
artifact level and improved SNR and CNR compared with cartesian k-space
sampling. Although SSFP imaging led to further increase in SNR and CNR, vessel
wall border definition was not improved. Studies in patients with known
coronary artery disease are now warranted to investigate the impact of
coronary vessel wall imaging with radial k-space sampling in a clinical
setting.
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P. M. Colletti
Cardiac Imaging 2006
Am. J. Roentgenol.,
June 1, 2006;
186(6_Supplement_2):
S337 - S340.
[Full Text]
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