Adaptive Trigger Delay Using a Predictive Model Applied to Black Blood Fast Spin Echo Cardiac Imaging in Systole

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

Cardiac-gated Fast Spin Echo (FSE) sequences with black blood preparation provide detailed anatomical information to clinical cardiac MR applications. However, the black blood preparation time is too long to allow this acquisition scheme to run in systole, hence black blood FSE are usually performed in diastole. Overcoming this limitation requires to predict the R-R interval to launch the preparation properly and to handle instantaneous heart rate variability. This approach has been implemented and tested on four healthy volunteers, and compared with fixed trigger delay (TD). Results demonstrate accurate depiction of the myocardium at end-systolic phase in black blood.