Influence of Strong Static Magnetic Fields on Myocardial Mechanics: Evaluation Applying Ultra-Wideband Radar

Florian Thiel¹, Mathias Hein², Jrgen Sachs², Ulrich Schwarz², Tomasz Lindel¹, Frank Seifert¹

ECG is excessively used for triggering MR data acquisition to image the heart. It is well established that the ECG is corrupted by the magneto-hydrodynamic effect (MHD). Hence, there is increasing difficulty to use the ECG for MR-triggering especially at B0-fields beyond 1.5 T. To investigate whether the myocardial contraction is also influenced by the static magnetic field, we propose a novel method, based on an ultra-wideband radar technique (UWB radar) to monitor the global myocardial dynamics inside a MR scanner.