Accuracy of Measuring Opening and Closing Characteristics of the Aortic Valve with SPEEDI MRI

Motivation: get-SPEEDI, a recently published pulse sequence, offers a promising MRI technique for imaging the rapid dynamics of the aortic valve (AV) opening and closing with sub-millisecond temporal resolution. Goal(s): This study aims to assess the accuracy of measuring the AV dynamics with get-SPEEDI by comparing its performance with transthoracic ultrasound, which is the gold standard clinically. Approach: Ultrasound echocardiograms and get-SPEEDI MR images of AV were acquired in healthy human subjects with 0.6- and 0.8-ms temporal resolution, respectively. Results: There were no statistically significant differences between get-SPEEDI and ultrasound in the measurements of AV opening and closing dynamics and the maximum AV area. Impact: The dynamic characteristics of the aortic valve measured with get-SPEEDI MRI agree well with the ultrasound measurements. get-SPEEDI MRI provides a new imaging tool for diagnosis of aortic valve diseases.