Free Breathing Myocardial T2 Measurements

Maelene Lohezic^1,2, Anne Menini^2,3, Brice Fernandez^1,2, Damien Mandry, ^2,4, Pierre-Andre Vuissoz^2,3, Jacques Felblinger^2,3

Myocardial T2 measurements usually require multiple breath hold acquisitions, leading to patient discomfort and misregistrations between images. We present a new method allowing free breathing T2 quantification that combines respiratory motion estimation, motion compensated reconstruction and T2 calculation. It has been validated on five healthy volunteers and has shown no significant difference compared to the standard breath hold technique. A morphological proton density weighted image is also obtained, allowing accurate examination of heart structures. Such technique could be used for cardiac iron overload assessment or detection of early rejection of heart transplant, even in non cooperative patients such as children.