Visibility of RF ablation lesions in native T1-weighted MRI reduces with time after ablation

Background Cardiac RF ablation is a widely accepted procedure for treatment of ventricular tachycardia and atrial fibrillation. Late gadolinium enhanced MRI (LGE-MRI) can be used to assess RF ablation lesions. However, LGE-MRI requires contrast injection and the visibility of lesions and appearance considerably change with time after the injection. Recently, native (non-contrast) T1-weighted (T1w) MRI was proposed to visualize RF lesions immediately postablation. The main aim of this work was to study how the visibility and volume of RF lesions in native T1w MRI changes with time after ablation.