Parametric Dependence of Myocardial Blood Oxygen Level Dependent, Balanced Steady-state Free-precession Imaging at 1.5 T: Theory and Experiments

Overview

Journal Magn Reson Med

Publisher Wiley

Specialty Radiology

Date 2010 Jan 26

PMID 20099334

Authors

Xiangzhi Zhou

Richard Tang

Rachel Klein

Debiao Li

Rohan Dharmakumar

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Myocardial blood oxygen level dependent, balanced steady-state free precession (bSSFP) imaging is a relatively new technique for evaluating myocardial oxygenation changes in the presence of coronary artery stenosis. However, the dependence of myocardial bSSFP blood oxygen level dependent signal on imaging parameters has not been well studied. In this work, modeling capillaries as cylinders that act as magnetic perturbers, the Monte Carlo method was used to simulate spin relaxation via diffusion in a field variation inside and outside blood vessels. bSSFP signal changes at various levels of capillary blood oxygen saturation, for a range of pulse repetition times, flip angle, capillary blood volume fraction, vessel wall permeability, water diffusion coefficient, vessel angle to static magnetic field, and the impact of bulk frequency shifts were studied. The theoretical dependence of bSSFP blood oxygen level dependent contrast on pulse repetition times and flip angle was confirmed by experiments in an animal model with controllable coronary stenosis. Results showed that, with the standard bSSFP acquisition, optimum bSSFP blood oxygen level dependent contrast could be obtained at pulse repetition times = 6.0 ms and flip angle = 70 degrees . Additional technical improvements that preserve the image quality may be necessary to further increase the myocardial bSSFP blood oxygen level dependent sensitivity at 1.5 T through even longer pulse repetition times.

References

Dharmakumar R, Arumana J, Tang R, Harris K, Zhang Z, Li D . Assessment of regional myocardial oxygenation changes in the presence of coronary artery stenosis with balanced SSFP imaging at 3.0 T: theory and experimental evaluation in canines. J Magn Reson Imaging. 2008; 27(5):1037-45. DOI: 10.1002/jmri.21345. View

Zhong K, Leupold J, Hennig J, Speck O . Systematic investigation of balanced steady-state free precession for functional MRI in the human visual cortex at 3 Tesla. Magn Reson Med. 2006; 57(1):67-73. DOI: 10.1002/mrm.21103. View

Dharmakumar R, Plewes D, Wright G . On the parameters affecting the sensitivity of MR measures of pressure with microbubbles. Magn Reson Med. 2002; 47(2):264-73. DOI: 10.1002/mrm.10075. View

Li D, Wang Y, Waight D . Blood oxygen saturation assessment in vivo using T2* estimation. Magn Reson Med. 1998; 39(5):685-90. DOI: 10.1002/mrm.1910390503. View

Boxerman J, Hamberg L, Rosen B, Weisskoff R . MR contrast due to intravascular magnetic susceptibility perturbations. Magn Reson Med. 1995; 34(4):555-66. DOI: 10.1002/mrm.1910340412. View

Vignaud A, Rodriguez I, Ennis D, DeSilva R, Kellman P, Taylor J . Detection of myocardial capillary orientation with intravascular iron-oxide nanoparticles in spin-echo MRI. Magn Reson Med. 2006; 55(4):725-30. PMC: 2881601. DOI: 10.1002/mrm.20827. View

Thulborn K, Waterton J, Matthews P, Radda G . Oxygenation dependence of the transverse relaxation time of water protons in whole blood at high field. Biochim Biophys Acta. 1982; 714(2):265-70. DOI: 10.1016/0304-4165(82)90333-6. View

Li D, Dhawale P, Rubin P, Haacke E, Gropler R . Myocardial signal response to dipyridamole and dobutamine: demonstration of the BOLD effect using a double-echo gradient-echo sequence. Magn Reson Med. 1996; 36(1):16-20. DOI: 10.1002/mrm.1910360105. View

Wright G, Hu B, Macovski A . 1991 I.I. Rabi Award. Estimating oxygen saturation of blood in vivo with MR imaging at 1.5 T. J Magn Reson Imaging. 1991; 1(3):275-83. DOI: 10.1002/jmri.1880010303. View

10.

Arumana J, Li D, Dharmakumar R . Deriving blood-oxygen-level-dependent contrast in MRI with T2*-weighted, T2-prepared and phase-cycled SSFP methods: theory and experiment. Magn Reson Med. 2008; 59(3):561-70. DOI: 10.1002/mrm.21511. View

11.

Dharmakumar R, Hong J, Brittain J, Plewes D, Wright G . Oxygen-sensitive contrast in blood for steady-state free precession imaging. Magn Reson Med. 2005; 53(3):574-83. DOI: 10.1002/mrm.20393. View

12.

Bauer W, Nadler W, Bock M, Schad L, Wacker C, Hartlep A . The relationship between the BOLD-induced T(2) and T(2)(*): a theoretical approach for the vasculature of myocardium. Magn Reson Med. 1999; 42(6):1004-10. DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1522-2594(199912)42:6<1004::aid-mrm2>3.0.co;2-m. View

13.

WRIGHT K, Klocke F, Deshpande V, Zheng J, Harris K, Tang R . Assessment of regional differences in myocardial blood flow using T2-weighted 3D BOLD imaging. Magn Reson Med. 2001; 46(3):573-8. DOI: 10.1002/mrm.1229. View

14.

Kassab G, Fung Y . Topology and dimensions of pig coronary capillary network. Am J Physiol. 1994; 267(1 Pt 2):H319-25. DOI: 10.1152/ajpheart.1994.267.1.H319. View

15.

Scheffler K, Seifritz E, Bilecen D, Venkatesan R, Hennig J, Deimling M . Detection of BOLD changes by means of a frequency-sensitive trueFISP technique: preliminary results. NMR Biomed. 2001; 14(7-8):490-6. DOI: 10.1002/nbm.726. View

16.

Zhong J, Kennan R, Fulbright R, Gore J . Quantification of intravascular and extravascular contributions to BOLD effects induced by alteration in oxygenation or intravascular contrast agents. Magn Reson Med. 1998; 40(4):526-36. DOI: 10.1002/mrm.1910400405. View

17.

Kennan R, Zhong J, Gore J . Intravascular susceptibility contrast mechanisms in tissues. Magn Reson Med. 1994; 31(1):9-21. DOI: 10.1002/mrm.1910310103. View

18.

Rosamond W, Flegal K, Furie K, Go A, Greenlund K, Haase N . Heart disease and stroke statistics--2008 update: a report from the American Heart Association Statistics Committee and Stroke Statistics Subcommittee. Circulation. 2007; 117(4):e25-146. DOI: 10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.107.187998. View

19.

Miller K, Hargreaves B, Lee J, Ress D, Christopher deCharms R, Pauly J . Functional brain imaging using a blood oxygenation sensitive steady state. Magn Reson Med. 2003; 50(4):675-83. DOI: 10.1002/mrm.10602. View

20.

Boxerman J, Bandettini P, Kwong K, Baker J, Davis T, Rosen B . The intravascular contribution to fMRI signal change: Monte Carlo modeling and diffusion-weighted studies in vivo. Magn Reson Med. 1995; 34(1):4-10. DOI: 10.1002/mrm.1910340103. View