The goal of this work was to develop methods to overcome the practical difficulties of 3T human myocardial imaging and to determine reliable reference values for transverse relaxation in normal human myocardium.
Nine healthy volunteers were investigated with three multi-echo, turbo spin-echo (TSE) methods. Each method involved tradeoffs between acquired phase encoding lines per image and the number of echo-image sample points obtained along the T2 decay curve. Three multi-echo turbo field-echo (TFE) methods were also tested. The TFE methods highlighted differences between achievable bandwidth per pixel and echo time constraints versus the number of sample points obtained along the T2* decay curve. Measured transverse relaxation values in pixel maps and regions of interest, quality of monoexponential curve fits, and signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) were assessed among methods to determine accuracy and repeatability.
Measured T2 and T2* values were consistent in reported means and in SNR across all scan methods. T2 for the ventricular septum was 59.5 ± 7.9 ms (N=9) across all TSE methods. The 4-echo method gave the best curve fits. T2* for the ventricular septum was 31.6 ± 6.1 ms (N = 9) with the 4-echo method yielding the highest quality curve fits. Significant differences between measured endo- and epicardial transverse relaxation due to myocardial perfusion were not observed.
These results indicate that the 4- echo methods are best for optimal T2 and T2* sampling in the mid-ventricular septum.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:VANDERBILT/oai:VANDERBILTETD:etd-03312008-100520 |
| Date | 25 April 2008 |
| Creators | Cobb, Jared Guthrie |
| Contributors | Cynthia B. Paschal, John C. Gore |
| Publisher | VANDERBILT |
| Source Sets | Vanderbilt University Theses |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.library.vanderbilt.edu/available/etd-03312008-100520/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to Vanderbilt University or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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