Stanford
Advanced Cardiovascular Imaging Lab

Research

Cardiovascular magnetic resonance imaging (CMR), also known as cardiac MRI, is a medical imaging technology for non-invasive assessment of the function and structure of the cardiovascular system. The development of CMR is an active field of research and continues to see a rapid expansion of new and emerging techniques.

  • High-resolution Spiral First-pass Myocardial Perfusion Imaging

First-pass contrast-enhanced myocardial perfusion MRI has proven to be a promising noninvasive technique for evaluating patients with known or suspected coronary artery disease (CAD), demonstrating excellent diagnostic and prognostic utility.

Our lab aims to develop fast and high-resolution spiral quantitative perfusion imaging techniques with whole-heart coverage. Specifically, we have demonstrated excellent performances utilizing variable density spiral trajectories, parallel imaging, compressed sensing, outer volume suppression and simultaneous multi-slice techniques.

PerfusionMovie_!_5T
High-resolution spiral first-pass perfusion video from a patient using SMS acquisition (MB=3) and SMS-Slice-L1-SPIRiT reconstruction at 1.5 T.
Related publications:
  1. Wang, J, Yang, Y, Weller, DS, et al. High spatial resolution spiral first-pass myocardial perfusion imaging with whole-heart coverage at 3 T. Magn Reson Med. 2021; 86: 648– 662. https://doi.org/10.1002/mrm.28701
  2. Yang, Y, Meyer, CH, Epstein, FH, Kramer, CM, Salerno, M. Whole‐heart spiral simultaneous multi‐slice first‐pass myocardial perfusion imaging. Magn Reson Med. 2019; 81: 852– 862. HTTPS://DOI.ORG/10.1002/MRM.27412
  3. Yang, Y., Zhao, L., Chen, X., Shaw, P.W., Gonzalez, J.A., Epstein, F.H., Meyer, C.H., Kramer, C.M. and Salerno, M. (2018), Reduced field of view single‐shot spiral perfusion imaging. Magn. Reson. Med., 79: 208-216. doi:10.1002/MRM.26664
  4. Yang, Y., Kramer, C.M., Shaw, P.W., Meyer, C.H. and Salerno, M. (2016), First-pass myocardial perfusion imaging with whole-heart coverage using L1-SPIRiT accelerated variable density spiral trajectories. Magn. Reson. Med., 76: 1375-1387. https://doi.org/10.1002/mrm.26014

  • DEep learning-based rapid Spiral Image REconstruction (DESIRE) for High-resolution Spiral First-pass Myocardial Perfusion Imaging

Spiral perfusion imaging techniques, using a motion-compensated L1-SPIRiT based reconstruction, are capable of whole-heart high-resolution perfusion imaging. However, this reconstruction is performed off-line and takes ~1 hour per slice. To address this limitation, we developed a DEep learning-based Spiral Image REconstruction technique (DESIRE) for spiral first-pass myocardial perfusion imaging, for both single-slice (SS) and simultaneous multi-slice (SMS) acquisitions, to provide fast and high-quality image reconstruction and make rapid online reconstruction feasible.

DESIRE Workflow
DESIRE_PatientCase
A patient underwent clinical stress spiral perfusion imaging using the single-slice acquisition at 3 T. Images were reconstructed using the proposed DESIRE technique and L1-SPIRiT which served as the reference. The perfusion defect showed in DESIRE had good agreement with the reference. The cardiac catherization showed that the left anterior descending artery had the complete occlusion. The signal plot demonstrated that the temporal fidelity using the DESIRE had good agreement with the reference and the inputs with the preserved temporal fidelity at myocardium circled by the yellow line.
Related publications:
  1. Wang, J, Weller, DS, Kramer, CM, Salerno, M. DEep learning-based rapid Spiral Image REconstruction (DESIRE) for high-resolution spiral first-pass myocardial perfusion imaging. NMR in Biomedicine. 2022;e4661. doi:10.1002/nbm.4661
  2. Wang J, Weller D, Salerno M. DESIRE: DEep learning-based rapid Spiral Imaging Reconstruction for high-resolution spiral first-pass myocardial perfusion imaging with whole-heart coverage. In Proceedings of the SCMR 24th Annual Scientific Sessions, 2021 (oral presentation, ECA finalist).
  3. Wang J, Weller DS, Rodriguez Lozano P, Salerno M. High-resolution Spiral First-pass Myocardial Perfusion Imaging using DEep learning-based rapid Spiral Image REconstruction (DESIRE). In Proceedings of the ISMRM 29th Annual Meeting and Exhibition, 2021, p. 23 (digital poster).
  4. Wang J, Zhou R, Salerno M. Free-breathing High-resolution Spiral Real-time Cardiac Cine Imaging using DEep learning-based rapid Spiral Image REconstruction (DESIRE). In Proceedings of the ISMRM 29th Annual Meeting and Exhibition, 2021, p. 877 (digital poster).

  • DEep learning-based rapid Spiral Image REconstruction (DESIRE) for High-resolution Spiral Real-time Cine Imaging

Cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) real-time cine imaging, which does not require breath-holding or ECG gating, is clinically useful particularly for patients with impaired breath-hold capacity and/or arrhythmias. Spiral acquisitions, which provide high acquisition efficiency and insensitivity to motion artifacts, can require a long reconstruction time particularly for compressed-sensing or other iterative reconstruction techniques.  As such they cannot provide immediate feedback to the imager. We sought to develop high-resolution real-time cine imaging at using fast spiral acquisitions and deep learning-based rapid imaging reconstruction for both bSSFP and GRE imaging, to make high-quality and online reconstruction for cine imaging feasible.

Cine_1_5T
The bSSFP real-time cine video at 1.5 T from a patient reconstructed using the proposed DESIRE technique and the L1-SENSE.
Cine_GRE_1_5T
The GRE real-time cine video at 1.5 T from a patient reconstructed using the proposed DESIRE technique and the L1-SENSE.
Cine_GRE_3T
The GRE real-time cine video at 3 T from a patient with premature ventricular contractions reconstructed using the proposed DESIRE technique and the L1-SENSE. It is worth noting that the aliasing artifact near liver region in the L1-SENSE reconstruction doesn’t appear in the DESIRE reconstruction.
  • Related publications:
  1. Wang J, Zhou R, Wang X, Awad M, Salerno M. DEep learning-based rapid Spiral Image REconstruction (DESIRE) for Free-breathing High-resolution Spiral Real-time Cardiac Cine Imaging at 1.5 T. In Proceedings of the SCMR 25th Annual Scientific Sessions, Fort Lauderdale, Florida, USA, 2022 (poster).

  2. Wang J, Zhou R, Salerno M. Free-breathing High-resolution Spiral Real-time Cardiac Cine Imaging using DEep learning-based rapid Spiral Image REconstruction (DESIRE). In Proceedings of the ISMRM 29th Annual Meeting and Exhibition, 2021, p. 877 (digital poster).

  • Free Breathing Cine Imaging with Motion-Corrected Reconstruction at 3T Using SPiral Acquisition with Respiratory correction and Cardiac Self-gating (SPARCS)

Cine data were acquired continuously on a 3 T scanner for 8 seconds per slice without ECG gating or breath-holding, using a golden-angle gradient echo spiral pulse sequence. Cardiac motion information was extracted by applying principal component analysis on the gridded 8×8 k-space center data. Based on the previous study, respiratory motion was corrected by rigid registration on each heartbeat. With an 8-second data acquisition per slice, whole heart cine images with clinically acceptable spatial and temporal resolution and image quality can be acquired in less than 90 seconds of free-breathing acquisition.

Cine_SPARCS
SPARCS whole-heart cine video.
Related publications:
  1. Zhou, R, Yang, Y, Mathew, RC, et al. Free-breathing cine imaging with motion-corrected reconstruction at 3T using SPiral Acquisition with Respiratory correction and Cardiac Self-gating (SPARCS). Magn Reson Med. 2019; 82: 706– 720. https://doi.org/10.1002/mrm.27763

  • Cine And T1 mapping SPiral Acquisition with Respiratory and Cardiac Self-gating (CAT-SPARCS)

Based on the SPARCS technique, we proposed to simultaneously perform cine, T1 mapping, and LGE (post contrast) in a single acquisition with whole heart coverage in under 5 minutes.

Related publications:
  1. Zhou, R, Weller, DS, Yang, Y, et al. Dual-excitation flip-angle simultaneous cine and T1 mapping using spiral acquisition with respiratory and cardiac self-gating. Magn Reson Med. 2021; 86: 82– 96. https://doi.org/10.1002/mrm.28675

  • Respiratory-induced motion artifacts correction for k-t accelerated and compressed-sensing CMR perfusion imaging

We proposed a simple respiratory motion compensation strategy for k-t accelerated and compressed-sensing CMR perfusion imaging to selectively correct respiratory motion of the heart, based on linear k-space phase shifts derived from rigid motion registration of a heart region of interest. The results of phantom and human subjects can be visualized in Figure 1 and Figure 2.

Figure_MOCO_1
Figure 1
Figure_MOCO_2
Figure 2
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Related publications:
  1. Zhou, R., Huang, W., Yang, Y. et al. Simple motion correction strategy reduces respiratory-induced motion artifacts for k-t accelerated and compressed-sensing cardiovascular magnetic resonance perfusion imaging. J Cardiovasc Magn Reson 20, 6 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12968-018-0427-1