Royal Brompton & Harefield Nhs Trust

Royal Brompton Hospital

David Firmin

Jennifer Keegan

Conventional gradient echo sequences with relatively long echo-times visualise complex flow as signal loss, the degree and extent of which is a qualitative indicator of valvular heart disease. Since the long echo-time precludes segmentation, breath-hold imaging is not possible and acquisitions typically take 2-minutes with respiratory motion artefact being a frequent problem. In the present invention, a segmented sequence is used which generates similar degrees of signal loss to a conventional gradient echo sequence. However, the acquisition duration is reduced and breath-hold imaging is feasible, removing respiratory motion artefact.

Segmented acceleration sensitive cine MRI

A method of magnetic resonance imaging a flowing liquid flowing through a rectangular cross-section column of space, wherein imaging readings are obtained from points throughout the column by utilizing a frequency encoding gradient to define the position of a reading point in the direction of the long axis of the column; defining the position of a reading point in a plane normal to the long axis of the column using one of phase encoding gradients and echo-planar blips; using one of phase encoding gradients and echo-planar blips with odd echoes and even echoes to acquire readings in two distinct regions of k-space; and obtaining readings in each plane normal to the long axis of the column from a 32&times;32 matrix of reading points using 16 phase encoding steps and 8 echo planar interleaves. Alternatively, the step of obtaining may be accomplished by varying the velocity phase sensitivity of the frequency encoding gradient to achieve a continuously varying phase sensitivity across k-space.

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London, United Kingdom

David Firmin