Noise reduction in CP-SSFP myocardial BOLD images: deformable image registration and temporal averaging

Cardiac phase (CP)-resolved steady-state free-precession (CP-SSFP) imaging has been shown able to detect myocardial blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) signal changes under pharmacological stress and myocardial ischemia at rest. However, the noise level of images affects the reliability and sensitivity of the BOLD contrast obtained by using CP-SSFP. This study aims to combine an automatic cardiac-phase detection, deformable image registration and temporal averaging to improve quality of CP-SSFP cardiac images. The proposed method significantly increased CNRs of the images acquired during both systole and diastole and could be a practical tool for CP-SSFP-based myocardial BOLD applications.

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