Abstract #0020

Finn J, Laub G, Fonseca C, Nael K, Weinmann H, Nyborg G

At 3.0T, cardiac cine MRI using SSFP is limited by B0 inhomogeneity and magnetic susceptibility effects which heighten sensitivity to off-resonance artefacts. Spoiled gradient echo sequences, such as FLASH cine imaging, may have advantages over SSFP, at 3.0T, if the associated blood saturation effect can be overcome. The contrast agent Gadomer-17, used with FLASH cine imaging in a swine model at 3.0T eliminated saturation effects, remarkably improving blood-pool signal intensity and spatial and temporal uniformity, thereby affording better delineation of the myocardium from blood-pool. This technique has the potential to outperform SSFP for cardiac cine imaging at 3.0T.