Constantin von Deuster1,
2, Christian T. Stoeck2, Daniel Giese1, Jack
Harmer1, Rachel W. Chan3, David Atkinson3,
Sebastian Kozerke1, 2
1Division
of Imaging Sciences, King's College London, London, United Kingdom; 2Institute
for Biomedical Engineering, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland; 3Centre
for Medical Imaging, University College London, London, United Kingdom
Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) of the beating human heart became feasible in the last years, employing Stimulated Echo (STEAM) sequences for diffusion acquisition. Several signal averages and diffusion encoding directions make the image formation process however fundamentally slow. Hence acquisitions for 3D whole heart fibre configurations are not clinically applicable as several slices are necessary. We could show that concurrent dual-slice single-shot EPI cardiac diffusion weighted imaging using multi-band STEAM and controlled aliasing in parallel imaging can be used to speed up scan speed by a factor of two.