Whole-heart first-pass myocardial perfusion imaging with non-rigid respiratory motion correction

Background Assessment of myocardial perfusion plays an important role in the evaluation of coronary artery and ischemic heart disease [1,2]. Scan acceleration methods such as k-t PCA [3] have proven invaluable for increasing coverage and have facilitated 3D perfusion imaging [4]. However, the sensitivity to respiratory motion for high acceleration factors remains challenging [4]. Especially in clinical routine, long breathhold durations are not always feasible. In this work, an iterative k-t PCA algorithm is proposed which corrects for nonrigid frame-to-frame motion based on regularization with motion corrected k-t training data and motion operators thereof. It is demonstrated that this approach permits artifact-free reconstruction of 3D perfusion data acquired in noncompliant patients.