Assessment of late gadolinium enhancement in patients with cardiac arrhythmias with MR phase-sensitive inversion recovery single-shot true fast imaging with steady-state precession sequence / 中华放射学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To evaluate the feasibility and its clinical application of 3.0 T MRI in the assessment of the late gadolinium enhancement in patients with cardiac arrhythmias with phase-sensitive inversion recovery (PSIR) single-shot true fast imaging with steady-state precession (True FISP) sequence.Methods Fifty-six patients with arrhythmia confirmed by electrocardiogram underwent MRI in this prospective study.Late gadolinium enhancement were performed with both PSIR single-shot True FISP (sequence 1) and conventional segmented PSIR Turbo FLASH sequences (sequence 2).The overall image quality (4 scales) was assessed and recorded independently by two experienced radiologists.Statistical analysis was performed with Chi-square test and weighted Kappa test.Results Late gadolinium enhancement of all the 56 patients were successfully examined with the sequence 1 and 2.All the image qualities of sequence 1 reached 3 scales or more and met the requirements of clinical diagnosis,and late gadolinium enhancement lesions were detection in 19 patients.All the sequence 2 images were improperly used for clinical diagnosis of the different degrees of artifacts,especially in patients with severe arrhythmia and those who breath-hold with difficulty.Sequence 1 images were classified as scale 4 in 50 cases and scale 3 in 6 cases by Doctor 1,while scale 4 in 48 cases and scale 3 in 8 cases by Doctor 2,respectively.However,sequence 2 images were classified as scale 2 in 15 cases and scale 1 in 41 cases by Doctor 1,as well as scale 2 in 13 cases and scale 1 in 43 cases by Doctor 2,respectively.Sequence 1 image qualities were significantly higher than those of the segmented sequence 2 (x2 values were 141.329 and 141.177,P＜0.01).Excellent agreements between two observers of the 2 sequences (Kappa values were 0.837 and 0.905,P＜ 0.01) were found.Conclusion PSIR single-shot True FISP sequence provides higher reliability for image quality of late gadolinium enhancement in patients with cardiac arrhythmia,which may be useful for clinical application.