| 1. |
- Berggren, Klas, et al.
(författare)
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Super-Resolution Cine Image Enhancement for Fetal Cardiac Magnetic Resonance Imaging
- 2022
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Ingår i: Journal of Magnetic Resonance Imaging. - : Wiley. - 1522-2586 .- 1053-1807. ; 56:1, s. 223-231
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- BackgroundFetal cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) improves the diagnosis of congenital heart defects, but is sensitive to fetal motion due to long image acquisition time. This may be overcome with faster image acquisition with low resolution, followed by image enhancement to provide clinically useful images.PurposeTo combine phase-encoding undersampling with super-resolution neural networks to achieve high-resolution fetal cine cardiac MR images with short acquisition time.Study TypeProspective.SubjectsTwenty-eight fetuses (gestational week 36 [interquartile range 33–38 weeks]).Field Strength/Sequence1.5 T, balanced steady-state free precession (bSSFP) cine sequence.AssessmentImages were acquired using fully sampled Doppler ultrasound-gated clinical bSSFP cine as reference, with equivalent cine sequences with decreased phase-encoding resolution (25%, 33%, and 50% of clinical standard). Two super-resolution methods based on convolutional neural networks were proposed and evaluated (phasrGAN and phasrresnet). Data were partitioned into training (36 cine slices), validation (3 cine slices), and test sets (67 cine slices) without overlap. Conventional reconstruction methods using bicubic interpolation and k-space zeropadding were used for comparison. Three blinded observers scored image quality between 1 and 10.Statistical TestsImage scores are reported as median [interquartile range] and were compared using Mann–Whitney's nonparametric test with P < 0.05 showing statistically significant differences.ResultsBoth proposed methods showed no significant difference in image quality compared to clinical images (8 [7–8.5]) down to 33% (phasrGAN 8 [6.5–8]; phasrresnet 8 [7–8], all P ≥ 0.19) phase-encoding resolution, i.e., up to three times faster image acquisition, whereas bicubic interpolation and k-space zeropadding showed significantly lower quality for 33% phase-encoding resolution (both 7 [6–8]).Data ConclusionSuper-resolution enhancement can be used for fetal cine cardiac MRI to reduce image acquisition time while maintaining image quality. This may lead to an improved success rate for fetal cine MR imaging, as the impact of fetal motion is lessened by shortened acquisitions.Level of Evidence1Technical EfficacyStage 2
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| 2. |
- Dicks, Demetrius L., et al.
(författare)
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Persistent Decline in Longitudinal and Radial Strain After Coronary Microembolization Detected on Velocity Encoded Phase Contrast Magnetic Resonance Imaging
- 2009
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Ingår i: Journal of Magnetic Resonance Imaging. - : Wiley. - 1522-2586 .- 1053-1807. ; 30:1, s. 69-76
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Purpose: To use velocity-encoded phase contrast (PC) MRI in assessing the effect of coronary microembolization on longitudinal and radial myocardial strain. Materials and Methods: A combined X-ray and MR system (XMR) was used for selective left anterior descending artery catheterization and microinfarct assessment in swine (n = 6). The embolized area at risk was defined on perfusion MRI followed by administration of a 7500 count (size = 100-300 mu m) of the embolic agent. Quantification of strain and microinfarction was performed at 1 h and 1 week using PC-MRI and delayed enhancement (DE) MRI, respectively. At postmortem, sliced hearts were stained to define microinfarction. Results: Baseline longitudinal and radial strain did not differ between area-at-risk and remote myocardium. The embolized territory (area at risk) showed significant decline in longitudinal strain from -11.5 +/- 3.2% to 1.8 +/- 2.5% at 1 h (P < 0.05) and -3.9 +/- 1.1% at 1 week (P < 0.05). Similarly, regional radial strain progressively declined from 23.6 +/- 2.5% at baseline to 12.5 +/- 3.7% at 1 h (P < 0.05) and 4.8 +/- 5.0% at 1 week (P < 0.01). The size of microinfarction was not significantly different between DE-MRI and histochemical staining. Conclusion: PC-MRI is sensitive in assessing changes in regional longitudinal and radial strain after coronary embolization. Longitudinal and radial strain of the hyperenhanced patchy microinfarction demonstrates persistent decline over the course of 1 week.
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| 3. |
- Haris, Kostas, et al.
(författare)
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Free-breathing fetal cardiac MRI with doppler ultrasound gating, compressed sensing, and motion compensation
- 2020
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Ingår i: Journal of Magnetic Resonance Imaging. - : Wiley. - 1522-2586 .- 1053-1807. ; 51:1, s. 260-272
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- BACKGROUND: Fetal cardiovascular MRI complements ultrasound to assess fetal cardiovascular pathophysiology.PURPOSE: To develop a free-breathing method for retrospective fetal cine MRI using Doppler ultrasound (DUS) cardiac gating and tiny golden angle radial sampling (tyGRASP) for accelerated acquisition capable of detecting fetal movements for motion compensation.STUDY TYPE: Feasibility study.SUBJECTS: Nine volunteers (gestational week 34-40). Short-axis and four-chamber views were acquired during maternal free-breathing and breath-hold.FIELD STRENGTH/SEQUENCE: 1.5T cine balanced steady-state free precession.ASSESSMENT: A self-gated reconstruction method was improved for clinical application by using 1) retrospective DUS gating, and 2) motion detection and rejection/correction algorithms for compensating for fetal motion. The free-breathing reconstructions were qualitatively and quantitatively assessed, and DUS-gating was compared with self-gating in breath-hold reconstructions. A scoring of 1-4 for overall image quality, cardiac, and extracardiac diagnostic quality was used.STATISTICAL TESTS: Friedman's test was used to assess differences in qualitative scoring between observers. A Wilcoxon matched-pairs signed rank test was used to assess differences between breath-hold and free-breathing acquisitions and between observers' quantitative measurements.RESULTS: In all cases, 111 free-breathing and 145 breath-hold acquisitions, the automatically calculated DUS-based cardiac gating signal provided reconstructions of diagnostic quality (median score 4, range 1-4). Free-breathing did not affect the DUS-based cardiac gated retrospective radial reconstruction with respect to image or diagnostic quality (all P > 0.06). Motion detection with rejection/correction in k-space produced high-quality free-breathing DUS-based reconstructions [median 3, range (2-4)], whereas free-breathing self-gated methods failed in 80 out of 88 cases to produce a stable gating signal.DATA CONCLUSION: Free-breathing fetal cine cardiac MRI based on DUS gating and tyGRASP with motion compensation yields diagnostic images. This simplifies acquisition for the pregnant woman and thus could help increase fetal cardiac MRI acceptance in the clinic.LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: 2 Technical Efficacy Stage: 1 J. Magn. Reson. Imaging 2019.
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| 4. |
- Haris, Kostas, et al.
(författare)
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Self-gated fetal cardiac MRI with tiny golden angle iGRASP : A feasibility study
- 2017
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Ingår i: Journal of Magnetic Resonance Imaging. - : Wiley. - 1522-2586 .- 1053-1807. ; 46:1, s. 207-217
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- PURPOSE: To develop and assess a technique for self-gated fetal cardiac cine magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) using tiny golden angle radial sampling combined with iGRASP (iterative Golden-angle RAdial Sparse Parallel) for accelerated acquisition based on parallel imaging and compressed sensing.MATERIALS AND METHODS: Fetal cardiac data were acquired from five volunteers in gestational week 29-37 at 1.5T using tiny golden angles for eddy currents reduction. The acquired multicoil radial projections were input to a principal component analysis-based compression stage. The cardiac self-gating (CSG) signal for cardiac gating was extracted from the acquired radial projections and the iGRASP reconstruction procedure was applied. In all acquisitions, a total of 4000 radial spokes were acquired within a breath-hold of less than 15 seconds using a balanced steady-state free precession pulse sequence. The images were qualitatively compared by two independent observers (on a scale of 1-4) to a single midventricular cine image from metric optimized gating (MOG) and real-time acquisitions.RESULTS: For iGRASP and MOG images, good overall image quality (2.8 ± 0.4 and 2.6 ± 1.3, respectively, for observer 1; 3.6 ± 0.5 and 3.4 ± 0.9, respectively, for observer 2) and cardiac diagnostic quality (3.8 ± 0.4 and 3.4 ± 0.9, respectively, for observer 1; 3.6 ± 0.5 and 3.6 ± 0.9, respectively, for observer 2) were obtained, with visualized myocardial thickening over the cardiac cycle and well-defined myocardial borders to ventricular lumen and liver/lung tissue. For iGRASP, MOG, and real time, left ventricular lumen diameter (14.1 ± 2.2 mm, 14.2 ± 1.9 mm, 14.7 ± 1.1 mm, respectively) and wall thickness (2.7 ± 0.3 mm, 2.6 ± 0.3 mm, 3.0 ± 0.4, respectively) showed agreement and no statistically significant difference was found (all P > 0.05). Images with iGRASP tended to have higher overall image quality scores compared with MOG and particularly real-time images, albeit not statistically significant in this feasibility study (P > 0.99 and P = 0.12, respectively).CONCLUSION: Fetal cardiac cine MRI can be performed with iGRASP using tiny golden angles and CSG. Comparison with other fetal cardiac cine MRI methods showed that the proposed method produces high-quality fetal cardiac reconstructions.LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: 2 J. Magn. Reson. Imaging 2017.
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| 5. |
- Nilsson, Anders, et al.
(författare)
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Variable velocity encoding in a three-dimensional, three-directional phase contrast sequence: Evaluation in phantom and volunteers.
- 2012
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Ingår i: Journal of Magnetic Resonance Imaging. - : Wiley. - 1522-2586 .- 1053-1807.
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- PURPOSE: To evaluate accuracy and noise properties of a novel time-resolved, three-dimensional, three-directional phase contrast sequence with variable velocity encoding (denoted 4D-vPC) on a 3 Tesla MR system, and to investigate potential benefits and limitations of variable velocity encoding with respect to depicting blood flow patterns. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A 4D PC-MRI sequence was modified to allow variable velocity encoding (VENC) over the cardiac cycle in all three velocity directions independently. 4D-PC sequences with constant and variable VENC were compared in a rotating phantom with respect to measured velocities and noise levels. Additionally, comparison of flow patterns in the ascending aorta was performed in six healthy volunteers. RESULTS: Phantom measurements showed a linear relationship between velocity noise and velocity encoding. 4D-vPC MRI presented lower noise levels than 4D-PC both in phantom and in volunteer measurements, in agreement with theory. Volunteer comparisons revealed more consistent and detailed flow patterns in early diastole for the variable VENC sequences. CONCLUSION: Variable velocity encoding offers reduced noise levels compared with sequences with constant velocity encoding by optimizing the velocity-to-noise ratio (VNR) to the hemodynamic properties of the imaged area. Increased VNR ratios could be beneficial for blood flow visualizations of pathology in the cardiac cycle. J. Magn. Reson. Imaging 2012. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
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| 6. |
- Seemann, Felicia, et al.
(författare)
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Valvular imaging in the era of feature-tracking : A slice-following cardiac MR sequence to measure mitral flow
- 2020
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Ingår i: Journal of Magnetic Resonance Imaging. - : Wiley. - 1522-2586 .- 1053-1807. ; 51:5, s. 1412-1421
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- BACKGROUND: In mitral valve dysfunction, noninvasive measurement of transmitral blood flow is an important clinical examination. Flow imaging of the mitral valve, however, is challenging, since it moves in and out of the image plane during the cardiac cycle.PURPOSE: To more accurately measure mitral flow, a slice-following MRI phase contrast sequence is proposed. This study aimed to implement such a sequence, validate its slice-following functionality in a phantom and healthy subjects, and test its feasibility in patients with mitral valve dysfunction.STUDY TYPE: Prospective.PHANTOM AND SUBJECTS: The slice-following functionality was validated in a cone-shaped phantom by measuring the depicted slice radius. Sixteen healthy subjects and 10 mitral valve dysfunction patients were enrolled at two sites.FIELD STRENGTH/SEQUENCE: 1.5T and 3T gradient echo cine phase contrast.ASSESSMENT: A single breath-hold retrospectively gated sequence using offline feature-tracking of the mitral valve was developed. Valve displacements were measured and imported to the scanner, allowing the slice position to change dynamically based on the cardiac phase. Mitral valve imaging was performed with slice-following and static imaging planes. Validation was performed by comparing mitral stroke volume with planimetric and aortic stroke volume.STATISTICAL TESTS: Measurements were compared using linear regression, Pearson's R, parametric paired t-tests, Bland-Altman analysis, and intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC).RESULTS: Phantom experiments confirmed accurate slice displacements. Slice-following was feasible in all subjects, yielding physiologically accurate mitral flow patterns. In healthy subjects, mitral and aortic stroke volumes agreed, with ICC = 0.72 and 0.90 for static and slice-following planes; with bias ±1 SDs 23.2 ± 13.2 mls and 8.4 ± 10.8 mls, respectively. Agreement with planimetry was stronger, with ICC = 0.84 and 0.96; bias ±1 SDs 13.7 ± 13.7 mls and -2.0 ± 8.8 mls for static and slice-following planes, respectively.DATA CONCLUSION: Slice-following outperformed the conventional sequence and improved the accuracy of transmitral flow, which is important for assessment of diastolic function and mitral regurgitation.LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: 2 Technical Efficacy: Stage 2 J. Magn. Reson. Imaging 2019.
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