Miriam Wilhelmina Lagemaat1, Markus Henningsson2, Matthias Stuber3, Andrea J. Wiethoff2,4, Rene M. Botnar2
1Dep. of Biomedical Engineering, Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven, Netherlands; 2NIHR Biomedical Research Centre at Guy's & St Thomas' Hospital and King's College London, London, UK; 3Dep. of Radiology, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA; 4Philips Healthcare, Reigate, UK
A non-invasive approach for coronary plaque imaging would be desirable in addition to X-ray coronary angiography. MR coronary vessel wall and plaque imaging techniques at 1.5T have been reported previously and were successful in imaging the RCA and LAD vessel walls. With the wider spread availability of high field 3T clinical scanners and the advent of commercially available 32-channel coils, higher resolution coronary vessel wall imaging has become feasible. In this study we sought to implement and optimize the local inversion pre-pulse technique on a 3T system and to obtain higher-resolution (0.5mm) 3D black blood cross-sectional coronary vessel wall images.
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