Himanshu Bhat1, Sven Zuehlsdorff2, Xiaoming Bi2, Xin Liu1, Renate Jerecic2, Debiao Li1
1Radiology and Biomedical Engineering, Northwestern University, Chicago, IL, USA; 2Siemens Medical Solutions, Chicago, IL, USA
A gradient echo interleaved EPI (GRE-EPI) sequence was optimized for contrast-enhanced whole-heart coronary MRA at 1.5T in a scan time less than 5 minutes. This is approximately a factor of 2 reduction in scan time compared to current whole-heart TrueFISP protocols. The reduced scan time made it feasible to acquire images with a more commonly used contrast agent Gd-DTPA instead of high relaxivity contrast agent Gd-BOPTA.