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Cardiac phase contrast gradient echo MRI: measurement of myocardial wall motion in healthy volunteers and patients

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Abstract

A number of methods have been proposed for the noninvasive measurement of myocardial wall motion. The paper describes a strategy for assessing myocardial motion based on the sensitivity of the phase of the MR-signal to motion using a breath-hold phase contrast technique. A motion-sensitized and a motion-compensated MR-signal are measured during successive scans. The difference between the two MR-signals is used to calculate myocardial velocity in all three spatial dimensions. Postprocessing includes the transformation of the measured velocities into an internal coordinate system of the left ventricle. Also various presentation modes and further processing of the received velocity information are provided including calculation of global motion parameters. We examined 20 patients suffering from myocardial infarction. The overall left ventricular motion can be characterized by appropriate parameters describing the rotation and contraction or expansion, respectively. Regional motional disturbances are visualized using parametric images. Contrary to the highly consistent interindividual data in normal volunteers, patients showed significant localized motion deficits.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Diagnostic Radiology, University Freiburg, Hugstetterstr. 55, Freiburg, Germany

    Michael Markl, Britta Schneider, Juergen Hennig, Jan Winterer & Jörg Laubenberger

  2. Department of Nuclear Medicine, University Freiburg, Hugstetterstr. 55, Freiburg, Germany

    Simone Peschl & Thomas Krause

Authors
  1. Michael Markl
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  2. Britta Schneider
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  3. Juergen Hennig
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  4. Simone Peschl
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  5. Jan Winterer
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  6. Thomas Krause
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  7. Jörg Laubenberger
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Markl, M., Schneider, B., Hennig, J. et al. Cardiac phase contrast gradient echo MRI: measurement of myocardial wall motion in healthy volunteers and patients. Int J Cardiovasc Imaging 15, 441–452 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1006355106334

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1006355106334

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