Contrast-Enhanced First-Pass Myocardial Perfusion Magnetic Resonance Imaging With Parallel Acquisition At 3.0 Tesla

Objective: Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) at 3 T is significantly different than 1.5 T and needs to be optimized due to increased signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and specific absorption ratio (SAR). This study tests the hypothesis that first-pass myocardial perfusion MRI using saturation recovery (SR)-TrueFISP with parallel imaging is superior to SR-TurboFLASH and a more achievable technique for clinical application at 3 T.Materials and Methods: Myocardial perfusion imaging was performed on 12 subjects using SR-TurboFLASH and SR-TrueFISP sequences combined with parallel imaging. Four myocardial slices were acquired and evaluated by image segmentation. Quality of the measurements was determined from SNR, contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR), enhancement-to-noise ratio (ENR), and myocardial perfusion upslope. Data were analyzed using a 2-way ANOVA with imaging method and segment number as the independent variables.Results: SNR, CNR, ENR, and upslope were significantly higher for SR-TrueFISP versus SR-TurboFLASH (P < 0.001). Significant differences in SNR, CNR, ENR, and upslope were found among the myocardial segments (P < 0.005).Conclusions: Optimized SR-TrueFISP first-pass myocardial perfusion MRI at 3 T has superior image quality compared with SRTurboFLASH, independent of the myocardial segment analyzed. However, coil sensitivity nonuniformities and dielectric resonance effects cause signal intensity differences between myocardial segments that must be accounted for when interpreting 3 T perfusion studies.