Efficacy of slow infusion of gadolinium contrast agent in three-dimensional MR coronary artery imaging

The impact of the contrast infusion scheme on contrastenhanced coronary art ery imaging was investigated, The imaging technique was a retrospective res piratory-gated gradient-echo sequence. To improve the contrast between bloo d vessels and myocardium, an inversion pulse was applied to null the myocar dial signal, Extravascular contrast agent was infused slowly during data ac quisition, Two contrast infusion schemes were compared in animal and volunt eer studies and with simulations. One scheme enhanced blood signals during acquisition of both peripheral and central k-space data, which resulted in a relatively flat low-pass k-space filter The other scheme mainly enhanced blood signals during acquisition of central k-space data, which resulted in a sharp low-pass k-space filter. It is concluded that the former scheme im proves the signal-to-noise ratio and edge definition of coronary arteries c ompared with the latter scheme. (C) 1999 Wiley-Liss, Inc.