Adaptive Heart Rate Prediction for Black-Blood Systolic Imaging

Julien Oster^1,2, Brice Fernandez^1,3, Malne Lohezic^1,3, Damien Mandry^1,4, Pierre-Andr Vuissoz^1,2, Olivier Pietquin^1,5, Jacques Felblinger^1,2

Cardiac MRI is still challenging. Image acquisitions are generally synchronized on R-waves of the electrocardiogram in order to avoid cardiac motion artifacts. Double inversion recovery fast spin echo sequences, which result in black-blood images, require an inversion time to cancel blood signal. This specific timing makes black-blood systolic imaging impossible. An adaptive heart rate prediction method, which combines a simple heart rate modeling and Kalman filtering, is described. Its implementation in a real-time hardware enables triggered acquisitions in every desired cardiac phase, without preparation time constraint. Black blood systolic images are presented demonstrating the acquisition strategy accuracy.