Evaluation of a Heart Phantom for Cardiac MR Elastography: A Feasibility Study

Shivaram Poigai Arunachalam¹, Kevin Glaser¹, Richard L. Ehman¹, Philip Araoz¹

Previous studies have shown that cardiac MR elastography (CMRE) can assess regional differences in stiffness between infarcted and remote, noninfarcted myocardium in pigs. However, clinical applications of CMRE are challenging given the thin wall and complicated wave propagation of the myocardium. Therefore, realistic phantom studies are necessary to determine the requirements for drivers, imaging sequences and inversion algorithms for CMRE. This paper focuses on evaluating a commercially available heart phantom for CMRE using 2D EPI and 3D GRE MRE pulse sequences. The results demonstrate the feasibility of acquiring volumetric data in the thin myocardial wall of the heart phantom.