Standardized phantoms for quantitative cardiac MRI

Background Quantitative MR relaxometry techniques are increasingly used in cardiac MR applications, e.g. MOLLI for high resolution T1 mapping. To use these techniques in the clinic, we must understand how to make comparable measurements across vendor systems and software versions and compare results across sites. A standardized phantom used for regular quality control is one approach. The Biomagnetic Imaging program at the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) has created phantoms for measuring T1, T2, proton density in collaboration with ISMRM (Fig. 1) and diffusion in collaboration with RSNA-QIBA. In addition, a breast phantom including T1 and diffusion components is in development with UCSF. We propose a cardiac phantom focused on quantitative measurements of the myocardium preand post-contrast and the blood pool. To test quantitative cardiac MR sequences, the phantom must mimic both the T1 and T2 relaxation properties in the same sample. The phantom must be stable, preferably for five years, and be reliably produced. Agarose gel is difficult to produce free of air bubbles and has a limited shelf life.