Quantifying right ventricular motion and strain using 3D cine DENSE MRI

Background The RV is difficult to image because of its thin wall, asymmetric geometry and complex motion. DENSE is a quantitative MRI technique for measuring myocardial displacement and strain at high spatial and temporal resolutions [1,2]. DENSE encodes tissue displacement directly into the image phase, allowing for the direct extraction of motion data at a pixel resolution. A free-breathing navigator-gated spiral 3D cine DENSE sequence was recently developed [3], providing an MRI technique which is well suited to quantifying RV mechanics.