Non-invasive quantification of myocardial volume oxygen consumption using free-breathing, ungated, self-calibrated MR blood oximetry

Motivation: Whole-heart myocardial oxygen consumption (MVO2) is the central factor that determines cardiac function and is a sign of heart diseases. Goal(s): We proposed a high-resolution, free breathing, cardiac-phase resolved sequence to quantify MVO2 in the beating hearts. Approach: Healthy pigs were scanned at 3T. Coronary sinus images were acquired with a continuous, free-breathing, Radial T2Prep-IR sequence with flow compensation and water excitation and a 2D phase contrast sequence to quantify the MVO2. Invasive ground truth was also measured to verify the accuracy of our estimation. Results: The proposed method measured comparable SbO2,OEF,MBF and MVO2 values to the invasive ground truth. Impact: The proposed free-breathing, motion-resolved cardiac MR Oximetry technique has the potential to non-invasively measure accurate myocardial oxygen consumption without using ionizing radiation and exogenous contrast agents.