Quantification of Cyclical Changes in Myocardial Blood Volume Using a Hybrid 3D/2D Sequence with Ferumoxytol-enhanced MRI

Motivation: Intramyocardial blood volume (iMBV) variations during cardiac cycle can be an important marker for detecting ischemic heart disease. However, quantifying the change in iMBV from diastole to systole under MRI has challenges such as through-plane motion or in-flow of unsaturated spins. Goal(s): Our goal is to perform accurate quantification of iMBV variations from diastole to systole. Approach: We developed a novel hybrid 3D/2D pulse sequence with continuous golden-angle radial acquisition to suppress the confounding factors for distinguishing diastolic and systolic iMBV. Results: Our approach successfully showed that cyclic variations in iMBV can be correctly quantified under ferumoxytol-enhanced MRI. Impact: We introduced, for the first time, an approach to quantify cyclic systolic and diastolic intramyocardial blood volume variations at rest on a clinical scanner with ferumoxytol-enhanced imaging. Our method has the potential to be used for detecting ischemic heart disease