Fast Velocity Mapping of Myocardial Motion with k-Space Segmented Black Blood Echo Planar and Gradient Echo Imaging

Introduction: Cine or multi-phase cardiac imaging offers a variety of applications such as assessment of global cardiac function, measurement of the heart wall motion with phase contrast [1] or tagging techniques [2] as well as determination of flow inside the ventricular system. Here, we present two fast imaging methods for assessment of myocardial motion: Interleaved Echo Planar Imaging (EPI) with multiple excitations per phase of the heart movement and fast k-space segmented gradient echo imaging. In comparison to previous velocity mapping approaches [3] our new methods permit to obtain full in-plane velocity information of the heart wall motion within a single breath-hold. The resulting multi-phase images can be used to evaluate global cardiac function.