1. Coronary artery disease remains one of the leading causes of morbidity and mortality in developed countries. Recent surveys suggest that 3D whole-heart coronary magnetic resonance angiography (MRA) at 1.5 T is a promising technique for non-invasive assessment of the coronary arteries [1-6].

2. When a contrast-enhanced whole-heart approach is used, ECG- and respiratory triggering require a contrast agent that enables increased blood signal intensity for a longer period of time than the first pass of an extravascular contrast agent.

3. Various contrast agents have been used at 3.0T in previous investigations for coronary MRA, such as gadopentetate dimeglumine [7] or gadobenate dimeglumine [8]. The intravascular contrast media provide long time windows for coronary MRA acquisition due to prolonged plasma half-life and slow extravasation to the interstitial space [2, 9, 10].

4. In theory, field strength of 3.0 T offers an almost two-fold higher signal intensity and signal-to-noise ratio, than a 1.5 T system, if the same pulse sequence technique is used [11, 12]. Fast low-angle shot (FLASH) readout technique, proved relatively insensitive to the increased field inhomogeneities of 3.0 T [13].

5. The concept of the present study was the optimization of the ECG- and respiratory-triggered coronary MRA technique through the improvement of SNR and CNR by the application of an intravascular contrast agent at higher field strength.

6. The purpose of the current investigation was to compare contrast-enhanced MRA at 3.0 T with the same method (FLASH) performed at 1.5 T using gadofosveset, in order to evaluate the effect of a higher field strength in coronary artery visualization.