Accelerated 4D DENSE for Volumetric Myocardial Strain Imaging Using Reduced Field-of-View: A Preliminary Study

Motivation: Strain imaging provides valuable insights into myocardial mechanics, yet its practical application is limited by the prolonged acquisition time. Goal(s): To accelerate 4D DENSE acquisitions. Approach: The proposed accelerated DENSE protocol used reduced FOV to achieve a shorter acquisition time. Five healthy subjects underwent accelerated DENSE acquisitions with reduced FOV and reference DENSE acquisitions with full FOV. Results: The accelerated protocol reduced the acquisition time by approximately 33%, compared to the reference protocol with the same left ventricle coverage. The accelerated protocol showed good agreement with the reference protocol for calculated strain values. Impact: The accelerated protocol achieved a reliable 33% reduction in acquisition time compared to the reference protocol. With further optimization and validation, this proposed network may facilitate efficient 4D DENSE data acquisition for whole-heart strain imaging in clinical settings.