Collins, Steven

Feiweier, Thorsten

Firmin, David N

Gatehouse, Peter D

Jackowski, Marcel P

Keegan, Jennifer

Mekkaoui, Choukri

Nielles-Vallespin, Sonia

Reese, Timothy G

Sosnovik, David E

Speier, Peter

English

PubMed

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POSTER PRESENTATION Open Access
Diffusion tensor MRI of the human heart In Vivo
with a navigator based free breathing approach
Sonia Nielles-Vallespin1*, Choukri Mekkaoui2, Peter D Gatehouse1, Timothy G Reese2, Jennifer Keegan1,
Steven Collins1, Peter Speier3, Thorsten Feiweier3, Marcel P Jackowski4, David E Sosnovik2, David N Firmin1
From 15th Annual SCMR Scientific Sessions
Orlando, FL, USA. 2-5 February 2012
Summary
The purpose of this work was to implement prospective
navigators to allow free breathing in vivo DTI of the
heart to be performed and, thereby, allow the technique
to be broadly applied in patients with cardiovascular
disease.
Background
Diffusion tensor MRI (DTI) provides a non-invasive
approach for the depiction of the myocardial fibre archi-
tecture [1-5]. In vivo DTI remains extremely challenging
due to the need for motion correction. Several techni-
ques have been used to compensate for respiratory
motion: multiple breath-holds (>36 per patient), syn-
chronised breathing and retrospective navigators based
on image cross-correlation [2-5]. The purpose of this
work was to implement prospective navigators to allow
free breathing in vivo DTI of the heart to be performed
and, thereby, allow the technique to be broadly applied
in patients with cardiovascular disease.
Methods
The diffusion weighted (DW) STEAM single shot EPI
sequence was implemented on a clinical scanner (3T,
MAGNETOM Skyra, Siemens AG, Germany) [7]. The
crossed slices prospective navigators were applied before
and after the STEAM module. The navigator accept/
reject algorithm was modified to prevent bulk respira-
tory motion artifacts in the diffusion encoded images. A
biofeedback mechanism was implemented to increase
scanning efficiency. Eight volunteers were scanned with
breath-hold (BH) and navigated free breathing (FB) pro-
tocols (6 diffusion encoding directions, b=350s/mm2,
TR/TE=1100/23ms, BW=2442Hz/pixel, spatial resolu-
tion=2.7x2.7x8mm3, 3 slices, 8-10 averages). FA and
MD were calculated for 4 sections of the left ventricle
(LV) and one of the right ventricle (RV). MD and FA
values acquired with the BH and FB techniques were
compared with a paired t-test.
Results
Scan duration with the BH approach was 14.4±1.5min
and 17.1±4.2 min with the FB approach. The FB
approach thus significantly improved volunteer comfort
without a major increase in scan duration. An averaged
b0 image and FA and MD maps are shown in Figure 1.
Figure 2 shows the mean±SD of FA and MD values for
the different regions of the heart. No significant differ-
ences are seen between the BH and FB techniques
(p>0.3).
1CMR Unit, Royal Brompton And Harefield NHS Foundation Trust, London,
UK
Full list of author information is available at the end of the article
Figure 1 Example b0 image (averaged), FA and MD maps for BH
and FB.
Nielles-Vallespin et al. Journal of Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance 2012, 14(Suppl 1):P238
http://www.jcmr-online.com/content/14/S1/P238
© 2012 Nielles-Vallespin et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative
Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and
reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Conclusions
We show here that a free-breathing navigator based
approach to DTI produces high quality in vivo images.
The ability to perform free breathing DTI will be useful
in normal volunteers but critical if the use of DTI is to
be extended to patients with cardiovascular disease and
limited breath-hold capacity.
Funding
This project was funded and supported by the NIHR
Biomedical Research Unit at the Royal Brompton and
Harefield NHS Foundation Trust and Imperial College
London, and by the following grant from the National
Institutes of Health (R01HL093038).
Author details
1CMR Unit, Royal Brompton And Harefield NHS Foundation Trust, London,
UK. 2Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Massachusetts General
Hospital, Charlestown, MA, USA. 3MR R&D, Siemens AG Healthcare Sector,
Erlangen, Germany. 4Institute of Mathematics and Statistics, University of São
Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil.
Published: 1 February 2012
References
1. Streeter DD, et al: Circ Res. 1969, 24:339-347.
2. Edelman RR, et al: MRM. 1994, 32:423-428.
3. Reese TG, et al: MRM. 1995, 34:786-791.
4. Dou J, et al: MRM. 2003, 50:107-112.
5. Wu , et al: Circulation. 2006, 114:1036-1045.
6. Gamper U, et al: MRM. 2007, 57:331-337.
7. Nielles-Vallespin , et al: ISMRM. 2011.
doi:10.1186/1532-429X-14-S1-P238
Cite this article as: Nielles-Vallespin et al.: Diffusion tensor MRI of the
human heart In Vivo with a navigator based free breathing approach.
Journal of Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance 2012 14(Suppl 1):P238.
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Figure 2 Mean ± SD of FA and MD values for the different regions
of the heart.
Nielles-Vallespin et al. Journal of Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance 2012, 14(Suppl 1):P238
http://www.jcmr-online.com/content/14/S1/P238
Page 2 of 2


Diffusion tensor MRI of the human heart  with a navigator based free breathing approach

Nielles-Vallespin Sonia

Mekkaoui Choukri

Gatehouse Peter D

Reese Timothy G

Keegan Jennifer

Collins Steven

Speier Peter

Feiweier Thorsten

Jackowski Marcel P

Sosnovik David E

Firmin David N

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Journal of Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance

Diffusion tensor MRI of the human heart <it>In Vivo</it> with a navigator based free breathing approach

doi:10.1186/1532-429X-14-S1-P238 Cite this article as: Nielles-Vallespin et al.: Diffusion tensor MRI of the human heart In Vivo with a navigator based free breathing approach.

et al: Circ Res.

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Diffusion tensor MRI of the human heart In Vivo with a navigator based free breathing approach

Diffusion tensor MRI of the human heart In Vivo with a navigator based free breathing approach

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