EVALUATION OF THORACIC AORTIC DISSECTION USING BREATH-HOLDING CINE MRI

Objective: Our goal was to determine if breath-hold cine MRI in transa xial planes can be used for the evaluation of thoracic aortic dissecti on instead of conventional cine MRI since rapid imaging is required in this clinical setting. Materials and Methods: Twelve patients with th oracic aortic dissection were imaged using a 1.5 T imager. Breath-hold images were acquired with fast cine MR sequence (TR/TE = 9/2.8, 20 de grees flip angle) using segmented k-space data acquisition. Convention al non-breath-hold cine MR images (TRITE = 22/7.5, 35 degrees flip ang le, 2 averages) were taken with flow and respiratory compensation. Res ults: Sharpness of edges of the vessels on fast cine MR images was bet ter than that on conventional cine MR images in 34 (57%) of 60 images. Inhomogeneous blood signal in aortic lumen due to motion artifacts wa s found in 2 (3%) of fast cine MR images and in 15 (25%) of convention al cine MR images. The contrast-to-noise ratios of fast cine MR images were significantly better than those of conventional cine MR images ( 26.4 +/- 9.1 vs. 18.5 +/- 10.1; p < 0.05) when the region of interest for noise was placed to include ghosting artifacts. Conclusion: Breath -hold cine MRI is a rapid technique that gives high quality images of thoracic aortic dissection and can provide a diagnosis in <10 min of i maging time.