Coronary artery wall imaging: Initial experience at 3 Tesla

Purpose: To assess the feasibility of black-blood turbo spin-echo imaging of the left anterior descending coronary artery wall at 3 Tesla under free-breathing and breath-hold conditions. Materials and Methods: Proton density-weighted black-blood turbo spin-echo imaging of the left anterior descending coronary artery was performed on 15 volunteers on a 3 T whole body scanner with an eight channel phased array coil. Volunteers were imaged during free-breathing (with navigators, N = 5), or with breath-hold (N = 5), or both (N = 2). Imaging was not possible in three volunteers due to either gradient or radiofrequency (RF) coupling with the electrocardiogram (ECG). Images were analyzed to determine coronary artery wall thickness, wall area, lumen diameter, and lumen area. Signal-to-noise and contrast-to-noise ratios were calculated. Results: Coronary artery wall thickness, wall area, lumen diameter, and lumen area measurements were consistent with previous magnetic resonance (MR) measurements of the coronary wall at 1.5 Tesla. Conclusion: Coronary wall imaging using free-breathing and breath-hold two-dimensional black-blood TSE is feasible at 3 T. Further improvement in resolution and image quality is required to detect and characterize coronary plaque.