ABSTRACT
PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to compare a new free-breathing compressed sensing cine (FB-CS) cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (CMR) to the standard reference multi-breath-hold segmented cine (BH-SEG) CMR in an unselected population. MATERIALS AND METHODS: From January to April 2021, 52 consecutive adult patients who underwent both conventional BH-SEG CMR and new FB-CS CMR with fully automated respiratory motion correction were retrospectively enrolled. There were 29 men and 23 women with a mean age of 57.7 ± 18.9 (standard deviation [SD]) years (age range: 19.0-90.0 years) and a mean cardiac rate of 74.6 ± 17.9 (SD) bpm. For each patient, short-axis stacks were acquired with similar parameters providing a spatial resolution of 1.8 × 1.8 × 8.0 mm3 and 25 cardiac frames. Acquisition and reconstruction times, image quality (Likert scale from 1 to 4), left and right ventricular volumes and ejection fractions, left ventricular mass, and global circumferential strain were assessed for each sequence. RESULTS: FB-CS CMR acquisition time was significantly shorter (123.8 ± 28.4 [SD] s vs. 267.2 ± 39.3 [SD] s for BH-SEG CMR; P < 0.0001) at the penalty of a longer reconstruction time (271.4 ± 68.7 [SD] s vs. 9.9 ± 2.1 [SD] s for BH-SEG CMR; P < 0.0001). In patients without arrhythmia or dyspnea, FB-CS CMR provided subjective image quality that was not different from that of BH-SEG CMR (P = 0.13). FB-CS CMR improved image quality in patients with arrhythmia (n = 18; P = 0.002) or dyspnea (n = 7; P = 0.02), and the edge sharpness was improved at end-systole and end-diastole (P = 0.0001). No differences were observed between the two techniques in ventricular volumes and ejection fractions, left ventricular mass or global circumferential strain in patients in sinus rhythm or with cardiac arrhythmia. CONCLUSION: This new FB-CS CMR addresses respiratory motion and arrhythmia-related artifacts without compromising the reliability of ventricular functional assessment.
