Motion Corrected 3D Whole-Heart Vessel Wall Imaging

Background Coronary atherosclerosis is not necessarily stenotic, due to outward remodeling of the vessel wall. Plaque burden correlates with risk of coronary disease (Kubo et al, J Am Coll Cardiol 2007) and direct visualization is desired. A 3D flow independent approach for vessel wall imaging was proposed recently (Andia et al, MRM 2013), based on subtraction of data with (T2prep(+)) and without (T2prep(-)) a T2-preparation prepulse. However, T2prep(+) and T2prep(-) data are only accepted when both are within the acquisition window given by the diaphragmatic navigator, leading to increased scan times. Here, we propose to accelerate the acquisition by performing respiratory motion correction on T2prep(-) and T2prep(+) with 100% scan efficiency. This is achieved with a beat-to-beat translational correction combined with a bin-to-bin non-rigid correction.