Ian Marshall1, 2, Maurits A. Jansen1, 2, Yuehui Tao1, 3, Gavin D. Merrifield1, 4, Gillian A. Gray2
1Medical Physics, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, United Kingdom; 2Centre for Cardiovascular Science, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, United Kingdom; 3Brain Research Imaging Centre, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, United Kingdom; 4SINAPSE consortium, www.sinapse.ac.uk, United Kingdom
Conventional cine cardiac scans were compared with threefold undersampled kt-BLAST acquisition in 6 healthy mice and one with myocardial infarct. Cardiological indices determined from the kt-BLAST acquisition agreed well with those from the standard cine sequence. End-diastolic LV volume was underestimated by 5%, end-systolic volume overestimated by 5% and ejection fraction underestimated by 4%. These differences are within the intra- and inter-observer variation expected in cardiac studies of mice. We conclude that accelerated mouse cardiac imaging is possible with acceptable accuracy for an acceleration factor of 3 times. The subsequent reduction in exposure to anaesthesia will contribute to animal welfare.