Fat suppression for coronary MR angiography at 3T: 2 point Dixon versus Spectral Presaturation with Inversion Recovery (SPIR)

Background The coronary arteries are embedded in epicardial fat. To improve visualization in coronary MR angiography (CMRA) fat suppression techniques such as Spectral Presaturation with Inversion Recovery (SPIR) are often employed. Recently, water-fat separation using the multiecho 2 point Dixon method has gained increasing interest as it allows decomposing the MR signal into a water and fat image during image reconstruction [Eggers, MRM 2011]. While the water image provides a coronary angiogram the fat image may also contain clinically useful information and could be used for epicardial/pericardial fat quantification [Koken, ISMRM, 2011]. The purpose of this study was to compare SPIR and 2 point Dixon for coronary vessel delineation for the first time on a 3T clinical scanner.