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CV MR multitasking may improve accuracy, patient comfort
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A novel quantitative cardiac MRI technique called CV MR multitasking enabled accurate diagnosis without requiring patients to hold their breath, researchers reported.
“Quantitative imaging, particularly in MRI, is really valuable because [it] gives us absolute numbers. But to do quantitative imaging with MRI, you have to collect multiple images, and motion will corrupt your measurement,” Anthony G. Christodoulou, PhD, research scientist in the Biomedical Imaging Research Institute at Cedars-Sinai, told Cardiology Today. “In the past, people have asked the patient to hold their breath and have tried to image only when the heart is in a certain position based on an ECG. That is very difficult. What we set out to do was simplify the entire process for both the patients and the technologists operating the scanner. Instead of beating the motion, we just capture it. We let the scanner capture images and we sort out the different types of motion later, as well as all the different types of tissue processes that we want to quantify.”
Christodoulou and colleagues tested MR multitasking in 10 patients with CHD and 10 healthy volunteers.
According to the researchers, the system was able to detect MI accurately, and could complete three tests in as short as 90 seconds. In addition, they wrote, participants reported that the experience was comfortable because they did not have to hold their breath.
“The measurements we were able to get where patients were allowed to breathe and we didn’t have to use an ECG were accurate compared with the more difficult method where the patient must hold their breath and we have to do the ECG triggering,” Christodoulou said.
“We are as good with the numbers but much faster and easier in terms of the process,” Debiao Li, PhD, director of the Biomedical Imaging Research Institute at Cedars-Sinai, told Cardiology Today. “We think this will make the process easier on patients to allow for sicker patients to be imaged. Also, making the process faster can reduce costs and improve workflow. The quantified nature of this technique will yield more precise and accurate information on these tissue states. This is essential for personalized or precision medicine.”
Further development must be done on the processing side to enable faster calculations and quicker results, according to Li. Larger studies will also be needed to confirm the findings of the pilot study, he said.
“In the next 2 or 3 years, I hope this can be widely used in more centers,” Li said. – by Erik Swain
Disclosures: Christodoulou, Li and three other authors report that they filed a provisional patent application for the technology.
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