RESUMO
Objective:To investigate the feasibility of single breath-hold TFE-EPI in non-contrast coronary MRA on 3.0 T MRI.Methods:Both single breath-hold TFE-EPI and free breathing TFE were conducted in 23 healthy volunteers. Acquisition time between the two sequences were compared by paired- t-test analysis. Signal-noise-ratio (SNR), contrast-noise-ratio (CNR),image artifacts and distortion,vessel acuity were evaluated on the aorta(Ao), right coronary artery proximal(RCA-pro), right coronary artery middle (RCA-mid), left anterior descending proximal(LAD-pro) and left circumflex proximal(LCX-pro). Nonparametric analyses were conducted for the comparison. Results:The acquisition time decreased 96.51% in TFE-EPI compared with TFE [(16.3±2.2)s vs.(466.9±101.3)s, t=21.49, P<0.01]. There was no statistical significance in SNR comparison in all the vessel evaluation (all the P>0.05). TFE-EPI showed better CNR in RCA-mid than TFE ( Z=2.65, P=0.008). TFE-EPI showed less image artifacts and distortion in RCA-mid than TFE ( Z=2.00, P=0.046). TFE-EPI also showed better vessel acuity in both RCA-pro and RCA-mid than TFE ( Z=3.88, P<0.001; Z=3.42, P=0.001). Conclusion:Single breath-hold TFE-EPI could greatly shorten scan time while ensuring image quality in coronal artery imaging and has a broad application in future.