Advances in Real-Time MR Temperature Mapping of the Human Heart

Sebastien Roujol¹, Baudouin denis de Senneville¹, Gregory Maclair¹, Silke Hey¹, Pierre Jais¹, Chrit Moonen¹, Bruno Quesson¹

A method for monitoring the temperature evolution in the heart muscle at each cardiac cycle is presented. Cardiac triggering and navigator-based slice tracking for respiratory compensation were combined with image registration and with modeling of motion-related susceptibility changes. With this approach, temperature images were updated approximately each cardiac cycle (1 second) and the resulting median value of the temperature standard deviation in the septum ranged between 1 and 5 C for all volunteers (N=19). This rapid temperature imaging could be used for monitoring radiofrequency catheter ablations.