Cardiac gated breath-hold black blood MRI of the coronary artery wall: An in vivo and ex vivo comparison

Background: High resolution magnetic resonance (MR) imaging of the coronary artery wall in vivo has been limited by the cardiac and respiratory motion , flow artifacts as well as the relatively small size of the coronary arter ies. We sought to validate in vivo black blood MR imaging of the coronary a rtery wall using a double inversion recovery fast spin echo MR imaging sequ ence with limited breath-holding and cardiac gating for suppression of moti on artifacts by comparison with ex vivo MR imaging. Methods: Yorkshire albi no swine (n = 6) were used in this study and coronary lesions were induced with balloon angioplasty. Four weeks after balloon injury of the coronary a rteries MR imaging of the coronary artery lesions was performed. High resol ution in vivo and ex vivo images of the coronary artery wall and lesions we re obtained using a double inversion recovery fast spin echo sequence in a 1.5 T MR system. There was a statistically significant agreement (p < 0.000 1) between measurements of vessel wall area (r = 0.87, slope = 0.87) and ma ximal wall thickness (r = 0.84, slope = 0.88) from in vivo and ex vivo MR i mages of the coronary arteries. The mean differences between in vivo and ex vivo measurements were 0.56 +/- 1.98 mm(2) for vessel wall area and 0.02 /- 0.36 mm for maximal wall thickness. Conclusions: Using breath-holding an d cardiac gating, it is possible to perform high resolution MR imaging of t he coronary artery wall in vivo with good suppression of motion artifacts w ith a double inversion recovery fast spin echo black blood imaging sequence .