The Free-Breathing Motion-Corrected Phase Sensitive Inversion Recovery Sequence Provides Improved Myocardial Fibrosis Evaluation while Significantly Shortening Acquisition Time Compared to Conventional Gradient Echo Sequences.

This article includes original research performed at a US Academic Center related to comparison of three separate Phase-Sensitive Inversion Recovery (PSIR) pulse sequences (Breath-hold Single-Shot SFFP, Breath-hold TurboFLASH, and Free-breathing Motion-Corrected SSFP) evaluating the ability of each PSIR sequence to demonstrate myocardial hyperenhancement.  All three PSIR sequences were performed as a part of a cardiac MRI performed on a patient clinically referred for cardiac MRI with and without contrast.  A total of 28 patients were examined with the three PSIR sequences.  All three PSIR sequences were performed in the short axis 10 – 25 minutes after intravenous injection of a Gadolinium-based contrast agent. 

Evaluation of the PSIR sequences ability to detect myocardial late gadolinium enhancement (LGE) was performed by a retrospective review by two blinded, experienced cardiovascular imagers.  The review was a qualitative inspection that included grading by a 5-point Likert scale for the sequence’s ability to resist motion artifact, image resolution, ability to visualize hyperenhancement, and overall satisfaction.  The number of myocardial segments demonstrating LGE was also quantitated, and the acquisition time of each PSIR sequence was performed.

To our knowledge this is the first study that compares the 3 available PSIR LGE sequences with a specific attention to acquisition time (TA).  Given our initial study resulted in the conclusion that the motion-corrected SSFP PSIR sequence was superior the the TurboFLASH Gradient Echo PSIR sequence in regards to evaluator grading and acquisition time efficiency.