Use of compressed sensing to reduce scan time and breath-holding for cardiac cine balanced steady-state free precession magnetic resonance imaging in children and young adults

Background: Conventional pediatric volumetric MRI acquisitions of a short-axis stack typically require multiple breath-holds under anesthesia.

Objective: Here, we aimed to validate a vendor-optimized compressed-sensing approach to reduce scan time during short-axis balanced steady-state free precession (bSSFP) cine imaging.

Materials and methods: Imaging was performed in 28 patients (16±9 years) in this study on a commercial 3-tesla (T) scanner using retrospective electrocardiogram-gated cine bSSFP. Cine short-axis images covering both ventricles were acquired with conventional parallel imaging and a vendor-optimized parallel imaging/compressed-sensing approach. Qualitative Likert scoring for blood-myocardial contrast, edge definition, and presence of artifact was performed by two experienced radiologists. Quantitative comparisons were performed including biventricular size and function. A paired t-test was used to detect significant differences (P<0.05).

Results: Scan duration was 7±2 s/slice for conventional imaging (147±33 s total) vs. 4±2 s/slice for compressed sensing (83±28 s total). No significant differences were found with qualitative image scores for blood-myocardial contrast, edge definition, and presence of artifact. No significant differences were found in volumetric analysis between the two sequences. The number of breath-holds was 10±4 for conventional imaging and 5±3 for compressed sensing.

Conclusion: Compressed sensing allowed for a 50% reduction in the number of breath-holds and a 43% reduction in the total scan time without differences in the qualitative or quantitative measurements as compared to the conventional technique.