High Multiband Factor Highly Accelerated Whole Heart SMILE Perfusion

Motivation: Clinical cardiac perfusion captures a limited number of slices sequentially within each heartbeat, causing incomplete left ventricle coverage and potential quantification variability due to different cardiac phases. Goal(s): To image multiple slices simultaneously thereby reducing quantification variability and improve heart coverage. Approach: We apply highly accelerated Simultaneous Multi-slice Imaging via Linear phase modulated Extended field of view (SMILE) acquisition and reconstruction framework to cardiac perfusion. Results: With a high multiband factor and accelerated rate, SMILE perfusion achieve whole heart coverage and allows for more slices to be in the same cardiac phase. Retrospective and prospective experiments validated its good quality. Impact: The proposed methods can significantly enhance the heart coverage of clinical cardiac perfusion and potentially benefit reducing variability in quantitative perfusion assessment.