Michael Loecher^1,2, Luigi E Perotti³, Patrick Magrath⁴, and Daniel B Ennis^1,2,5,6
1Radiology, Stanford, Palo Alto, CA, United States, ²Radiology, Veterans Administration Health Care System, Palo Alto, CA, United States, ³Mechanical Engineering, University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL, United States, ⁴Radiology, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, United States, ⁵Cardiovascular Institute, Stanford, Palo Alto, CA, United States, ⁶Center for Artificial Intelligence in Medicine & Imaging, Stanford, Palo Alto, CA, United States

The objective of this work was to demonstrate the feasibility of using a convolutional neural net (CNN) based tag tracking algorithm for deriving strain measurements in grid tagged cardiac MR images.  The method was tested in 23 subjects. When compared to commercial software the CNN-based method produces similar measurements for peak Ecc and shows lower strain in boys with DMD compared to healthy subjects [CNN = -0.15±0.03 vs -0.21±0.03] and [Conventional = -0.16±0.03 vs -0.21 ± 0.02] (p < .001).  Peak Ecc was not significantly different within cohorts when compared between methods [DMD cohort: p=0.32, Healthy cohort: p=0.99]

Keyan Wang¹, Michaela Schmidt², Jing An³, and Xiaoming Bi^4
11st affiliated hospital of zhengzhou university, Zhengzhou, China, ²Siemens Healthcare GmbH, Erlangen, Germany, ³Siemens Shenzhen Magnetic Resonance Ltd, Shenzhen, China, ⁴Siemens Healthineers, Los Angeles, CA, United States

The application of cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) is limited in patients with arrhythmia or poor breath holding ability. In this study, clinical value of a rapid free-breathing workflow was assessed by employing real-time compressed-sensing for cardiac function and motion-corrected LGE embedded in a workflow engine for cardiac assessment. Results indicated that the proposed free-breathing fast workflow allowed in a short acquisition time to assess the morphological features of the heart and left ventricular function, especially in patients with severe heart failure.

Helen Sporkin¹, Christopher Schumann², Roshin Mathew², Christopher Kramer^2,3, and Craig Meyer^1,3
1Biomedical Engineering, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, United States, ²Cardiology, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, United States, ³Radiology and Medical Imaging, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, United States

In Peripheral Arterial Disease, arterial occlusions in the lower limbs lead to tissue ischemia, which can lead to claudication pain or the need for amputation. Creatine CEST (CrCEST) imaging can indirectly image creatine as it exchanges protons with free water during metabolism after exercise. Ischemia in the skeletal reduces available oxygen, slowing metabolism. CrCEST data of three major calf muscle groups were fit to a monoexponential function in order to compare energetics between PAD patients and age-matched normal subjects. We have so far imaged 22 aged-matched subjects and 19 PAD patients, and found a significant increase in the decay constant.

Pei Han^1,2, Rui Zhang^3,4, Anthony Christodoulou², Shawn Wagner², Yibin Xie², Eugenio Cingolani³, Eduardo Marban³, and Debiao Li^1,2,5
1Department of Bioengineering, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA, United States, ²Biomedical Imaging Research Institute, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, CA, United States, ³Smidt Heart Institute, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, CA, United States, ⁴Department of Cardiology, Xin-Hua Hospital Affiliated to Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China, ⁵Department of Medicine, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA, United States

CMR T1 and ECV quantification can be used to characterize focal or diffuse myocardial fibrosis. However, it is technically challenging to acquire high-quality maps in small animals for preclinical research because of high heart rates and high respiration rates. In this study, we developed an ECG-free, free-breathing MR Multitasking T1 mapping method on a 9.4T small animal MRI system. The feasibility of characterizing diffuse myocardial fibrosis was tested in a HFpEF rat model. Elevated ECV found in the HFpEF group is consistent with previous human studies and shows strong correlation with the histological data.

Hui Zhu¹, Haojie Li¹, Zhaoxia Yang¹, and Liming Xia^1
1Radiology, Tongji Hospital, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China

Fulminant myocarditis show significant different LGE patterns, increased edema and decreased strain measurements compared with non-fulminant acute myocarditis and global peak circumferential and radial strain were closely correlated with quantitative parameters of myocardial edema.

Chunchao Xia¹, Xiaoyue Zhou², and Zhenlin Li^1
1West China Hospital, Chengdu, China, ²MR Collaboration, Siemens Healthineers Ltd., Shanghai, China

During hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM), left ventricular (LV) diastolic dysfunction is regarded as one of the primary mechanisms responsible for the main adverse cardiovascular events (MACEs). Early evaluation of LV diastolic function is of great importance to risk stratification and management optimization in HCM patient populations. Our study indicated that the cardiac magnetic resonance tissue tracking (CMR-TT)–derived longitudinal global diastolic strain rate (PDSR) is a novel and easy-to-perform index for evaluating LV diastolic dysfunction and predicting adverse outcomes in HCM patient populations, which would also be beneficial for risk stratification.

Paul J.C. Hughes¹, Andrew J. Swift^1,2, Frederick J. Wilson³, Marcella Cogliano¹, Fasial AA Alandejani¹, Anthony Cahn³, Lindsay Kendall³, David G. Kiely^2,4,5, and Jim M. Wild^1,2
1POLARIS, Department of Infection, Immunity and Cardiovascular Disease, The University of Sheffield, Sheffield, United Kingdom, ²Insigneo Institute for in silico Medicine, The University of Sheffield, Sheffield, United Kingdom, ³GlaxoSmithKline R&D Ltd, Stevenage, United Kingdom, ⁴Sheffield Pulmonary Vascular Disease, Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, Sheffield, United Kingdom, ⁵Department of Infection, Immunity and Cardiovascular Disease, The University of Sheffield, Sheffield, United Kingdom

Pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) is a condition that impacts on lug perfusion and right ventricular function. This work aimed to assess i) the diagnostic utility of relative pulmonary perfusion parameters to distinguish patients with PAH from healthy controls and ii) changes in lung perfusion in 2 patient groups with PAH: newly diagnosed patients initiating and patients escalating treatment and clinically stable patients who had no escalation of treatment.  

Xuehua Shen¹, Yating Yuan¹, Ming Yang¹, Xiaoyue Zhou², Jing Wang¹, Wei Sun³, Mingxing Xie³, Li Zhang³, and Bo Liang^1
1Department of Radiology, Union Hospital, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, Hubei, China, ²MR Collaboration, Siemens Healthineers Ltd., Shanghai, China, Shanghai, China, ³Department of Ultrasound, Union Hospital, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, Hubei, China

No study has explored the relationship between CMR-derived myocardial strain and the extent of LGE in asymptomatic HT patients. The purpose of this study was to evaluate this relationship using DRA and FT strain analysis. In this study, there were strong correlation and good reproducibility between DRA and FT strain modalities. HT patients with LGE had reduced LVGLS and preserved LVGCS. CMR-derived LVGLS was significantly and independently correlated with LGE.

Mario Bacher^1,2, Lorenzo Di Sopra¹, Peter Speier², Davide Piccini³, Anna-Giulia Pavon¹, Christopher Roy¹, Juerg Schwitter¹, Jérôme Yerly¹, and Matthias Stuber^1
1Department of Radiology, Lausanne University Hospital and University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland, ²Siemens Healthineers, Erlangen, Germany, ³Siemens Healthineers, Lausanne, Switzerland

The Pilot Tone is a novel motion sensing method capable of simultaneous, sequence independent measurement of respiratory and cardiac motion. Here, we show that Pilot Tone motion data can be used as an alternative to self-gating in a free-breathing, cardiac- and respiration resolved CMRI sequence. We demonstrate in a patient cohort that Pilot Tone motion information correlates well with ECG ground-truth and self-gating respiratory signals.

Olivier Jaubert¹, Gastao Cruz¹, Aurelien Bustin¹, Torben Schneider², Georgios Georgiopoulos¹, Mariya Doneva³, Pier-Giorgio Masci¹, Rene Michael Botnar¹, and Claudia Prieto^1
1Biomedical Engineering Department, School of Biomedical Engineering and Imaging Sciences, King's College London, London, United Kingdom, ²Philips Healthcare, London, United Kingdom, ³Philips Research Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany

Dixon cardiac Magnetic Resonance Fingerprinting (DcMRF) has been recently proposed to enable simultaneous water T₁, water T₂ and fat fraction (FF) quantification in a single breath-hold scan. Here we investigate the reproducibility, repeatability and clinical feasibility of DcMRF in comparison to reference MOLLI, T2GRASE and 6 echo proton density FF measurements. Reproducibility and repeatability were investigated in healthy subjects, whereas native T₁, T₂ and FF, and post contrast T₁ and synthetic ECV measurements were performed in patients with suspected cardiovascular disease.

Shi-Ying Ke¹, Meng-Chu Chang¹, Ming-Ting Wu², Ken-Pen Weng^3,4, and Hsu-Hsia Peng^1
1Department of Biomedical Engineering and Environmental Sciences, National TsingHua University, Hsinchu, Taiwan, ²Department of Radiology, Kaohsiung Veterans General Hospital, Kaohsiung, Taiwan, ³Department of Pediatrics, Kaohsiung Veterans General Hospital, Kaohsiung, Taiwan, ⁴Department of Pediatrics, National Yang-Ming University, Taipei, Taiwan

This study aims to evaluate biventricular myocardial circumferential kinetic energy (KE_Ø) for assessment of regional myocardial function in repaired tetralogy of Fallot (rTOF) patients with preserved global cardiac function. The tissue phase mapping (TPM) was acquired in the basal, mid, and apical slices in the left and right ventricles. We found the altered KE values and abnormal distribution of three-directional %KE in rTOF patients. In conclusion, the altered myocardial KE_Ø may provide useful information for assessment of regional myocardial function in rTOF patients with preserved global cardiac function.

Zhehao Hu^1,2, Fei Han³, Andre J.W. Van der Kouwe^4,5, Xiaoming Bi³, Bin Sun⁶, Jiayu Xiao¹, Junzhou Chen^1,2, Shlee S. Song⁷, Marcel M. Maya⁸, Debiao Li^1,2,9, and Zhaoyang Fan^1,2,9
1Biomedical Imaging Research Institute, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, CA, United States, ²Bioengineering Department, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, United States, ³Siemens Healthineers, Los Angeles, CA, United States, ⁴A. A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital, Charlestown, MA, United States, ⁵Department of Radiology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, United States, ⁶Department of Radiology, Fujian Medical University Union Hospital, Fuzhou, China, ⁷Department of Neurology, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, CA, United States, ⁸Department of Imaging, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, CA, United States, ⁹Department of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, United States

While underexplored to date, motion susceptibility may critically undermine clinical translation of 3D intracranial MR vessel wall imaging (VWI). Motion artifacts observed in intracranial VWI are either caused by head bulk motion or internally localized movement. By combing volumetric navigators (vNav) and self-gating (SG) strategies, we propose a novel motion compensation approach that can simultaneously address these two motion issues. Our preliminary studies demonstrated the potential of using this technique to improve robustness of 3D intracranial MR VWI.