Assessment of Pericardial Inflammation Using Delayed Enhanced Phase-Sensitive Inversion-Recovery TurboFLASH

Cormac Farrelly¹, Aoife Keeling¹, John Sheehan¹, Edward Wu¹, James Carr¹

PSIR reconstruction of TurboFLASH imaging(PSIR-TFL)has been described for the evaluation of myocardial hyperenhancement after myocardial infarction.Theoretically it may also offer improved contrast between inflamed pericardium and adjacent myocardium or effusion. The purpose of this study was to compare phase images to magnitude images using PSIR-TFL in patients with pericarditis.22 male and 18 female patients with pericarditis were evaluated.The mean contrast difference between myocardium and enhanced pericardium was quantitatively and qualitatively better on PSIR compared to magnitude reconstruction. The contrast difference between pericardial fluid and pericardium was particularly large in all patients with pericardial effusions on PSIR due to a reversal in the amplitude of the fluid signal.Delayed enhanced PSIR reconstruction leads to improved contrast of inflamed enhanced pericardium with surrounding structures compared to magnitude reconstruction or standard post contrast T1 weighted imaging.