Cardiac Simultaneous Multi-Slice Multimapping based on Locally Low-Rank and Sparsity Constraints: Method Development and Validation

Motivation: Simultaneous Multi-Slice (SMS) Multimapping can considerably improve the scan efficiency by acquiring myocardial T1 and T2 maps of 3 short-axis slices in 1 breath-hold. Goal(s): To propose an accurate, precise, and reproducible SMS-Multimapping method. Approach: A locally low-rank and sparsity-based reconstruction algorithm was developed to reduce noise and aliasing artifacts. Validation was performed in phantoms and 10 healthy subjects, where the method was compared with standard MOLLI/bSSFP T2 mapping and Multimapping. Results: Despite the 6-fold reduction of scan time, the proposed method shows good accuracy, reasonable precision, and acceptable reproducibility in its regional myocardial T1 and T2 measurement. Impact: The proposed method transforms a scan of 6 breath-holds down to a single breath-hold scan. Once employed, the method can greatly improve the patient comfort and efficiency of myocardial parametric mapping.