Comparison of Free Breathing Cardiac MRI Radial technique to the Standard Multi breath-hold cine SSFP CMR technique for the assessment of LV Volumes and Function

Background: Cardiac MRI (CMRI) is generally accepted as the gold standard for left ventricular (LV) volumes and function assessment. Standard cine SSFP sequences require prolonged, repeated breath holds and therefore may be challenging particularly for, debilitated, pediatric and elderly patients. Radial cine (RC) k‐space acquisition technique can provide reasonable image quality without the need for breath holding. The purpose of this study was to compare volumes and function results between free breathing RC technique and the standard multi–breath-hold cine SSFP technique.

Methods: 24 patients who underwent clinically indicated cardiac MRI (CMRI) were included in the study. In all patients both standard cine and radial cine sequences were performed. The images were analyzed using CMR⁴² semiautomatic tool of the CVI42 software, version 5.0.0 for end diastolic volume (EDV), end systolic volume (ESV), ejection fraction (EF) and myocardial mass. The RC and the standard breath-hold SSFP were techniques were compared using Pearson correlation and Bland-Altman analyses. Values of p < 0.05 were considered statistically significant.

Results: The average age was 45.7 (±18), there were 15 males and 9 females. The following table summarizes the correlation and Bland-Altman analysis results (P values for all correlations were <0.05).

Conclusions: The results demonstrate the feasibility of applying the RC non breath-hold strategy to evaluate LV volumes and function with high accuracy in a variety of patients.