Preliminary study of 3.0 T contrast-enhanced whole heart coronary MR angiography using 32-channel coils with high acceleration factor / 中华放射学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To evaluate the diagnostic accuracy of 3.0 T contrast enhanced (CE) whole heart coronary MRA ( CE MRA ) using 32-channel coils with high acceleration factor. Methods Sixty patients with suspected coronary artery disease who were scheduled for coronary angiography (CAG)underwent CE CMRA at 3.0 T MRI scanner. A 32-channel receiver coil was used for data acquisition. For image acquisition, an ECG-triggered, navigator-gated, inversion-recovery prepared, segmented gradient-echo sequence was used with an acceleration factor of three in the phase-encoding direction using GRAPPA reconstruction. Gd-BOPTA (0.15 mmol/kg body weight) was intravenously administered at a rate of 0. 3 ml/s. The diagnostic accuracy in detecting significant stenoses ( ≥50% of vessel lumen) was evaluated using χ2 test with X-ray angiography as the reference. Results Whole-heart CE CMRA was successfully completed in 56 patients who were scheduled for CAG. The averaged imaging time was ( 6. 0 ± 1.3 ) min.3.0 T CE CMRA using 32 channel coils correctly identified significant CAD in 28 patients and correctly ruled out CAD in 23 patients. The sensitivity and specificity were 93. 3% and 88.5% respectively.Conclusion Combined with dedicated 32-channel coils, 3.0 T CE CMRA allows significant reduction in imaging speed and reduced dose of the contrast agent. These improvements resulted in substantially improved overall accuracy of CE CMRA in detecting coronary artery disease.