In-vivo cardiac DTI: Comparison between Motion Compensated Optimized Diffusion Encoding (MODE) and Convex Optimized Diffusion Encoding (CODE) Techniques

Diffusion-weighted imaging(DWI) is used to determine defective areas such as fibrosis in the myocardium without the need of contrast agent by calculating apparent diffusion coefficient(ADC) and fractional anisotropy(FA). However, DWI of heart is very challenging due to bulk motion to which diffusion encoding gradients are sensitive. Previous studies proposed CODE (convex optimized diffusion encoding) and MODE (Motion-compensated Optimized Diffusion Encoding). Aim of this study is to compare ADC and FA using MODE and CODE technique in healthy subjects. No significant difference was found between two techniques. However, for a given TE, MODE generated slightly higher b-value compared to CODE.