Right ventricular assessment at cardiac MRI: initial clinical experience utilizing an IS-SENSE reconstruction

Abstract Cardiac MR is considered the gold standard in assessing RV function. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the clinical utility of an investigational iterative reconstruction algorithm in the quantitative assessment of RV function. This technique has the potential to improve the clinical utility of CMR in the evaluation of RV pathologies, particularly in patients with dyspnea, by shortening acquisition times without adversely influencing imaging performance. Segmented cine images were acquired on 9 healthy volunteers and 29 patients without documented RV pathologies using conventional GRAPPA acquisition with factor 2 acceleration (GRAPPA 2), a spatio-temporal TSENSE acquisition with factor 4 acceleration (TSENSE 4), and iteratively reconstructed Sparse SENSE acquisition with factor 4 acceleration (IS-SENSE 4). 14 subjects were re-analyzed and intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC) were calculated and Bland–Altman plots generated to assess agreement. Two independent reviewers qualitatively scored images. Comparison of acquisition techniques was performed using univariate analysis of variance (ANOVA). Differences in RV EF, BSA-indexed ESV (ESVi), BSA-indexed EDV (EDVi), and BSA-indexed SV (SVi) were shown to be statistically insignificant via ANOVA testing. R2 values for linear regression of TSENSE 4 and IS-SENSE 4 versus GRAPPA 2 were 0.34 and 0.72 for RV-EF, and 0.61 and 0.76 for RV-EDVi. ICC values for intraobserver and interobserver quanti...
Source: The International Journal of Cardiovascular Imaging - Category: Radiology Source Type: research