Abstract #1777

Comparison of the Quantitative First-Pass Myocardial Perfusion MRI with and Without Prospective Slice Tracking: Comparison Between Breath-Hold and Free-Breathing Condition

Dirk Ernst Johannes Cleppien¹, Georg Horstick², Nico Abegunewardene², Stefan Weber¹, Christian Ernst Mueller¹, Axel Heimann³, Karl-Friedrich Kreitner, Oliver Kempski³, Wolfgang Gnther Schreiber¹

¹Section of Medical Physics, Department of Radiology, Mainz University Clinical School, Mainz, Germany; ²Department of Cardiology, Mainz University Clinical School, Mainz, Germany; ³Department of Neurosurgical Pathophysiology, Mainz University Clinical School, Mainz, Germany

Robust quantification of myocardial blood flow using dynamic contrast enhanced MRI depends strongly on the absence of respiratory heart motion. The common clinical approach uses breath-holding to minimize this problem, but in cases with a poor breath-hold the remaining motion renders reliable measurements almost impossible. As a result it may be hard to detect cardiac tissue with abnormal perfusion. Another approach for freezing hearts motion is prospective slice tracking (PST). In this study PST was compared under free-breathing condition to breath-hold measurements. As a result PST significantly reduces variation of results induced by residual cardiac motion in both conditions.