Aims and objectives
Cardiac MRI is widely used to investigate a variety of cardiac pathologies from depiction of myocardial infarction to other non ischemic cardiomyopathies.
T2 mapping represents a promising new evolving method capable of in vivo tissue characterization.
Aim of this study was to investigate the interscanner reproducibility of T2 relaxation times in all three short and long axis in three 1.5 T MRI scanners from the same vendor using a dedicated commercially available software including automated motion correction.
Methods and materials
A total of 26 healthy volunteers (14 women and 12 men,
mean age: 26±3 years) without a history of cardiovascular disease and without cardiac risk factors were examined for this single center study on three different,
but structurally identical 1.5 T MR systems from the same vendor.
All scanners were equipped with an identical software package for T2 mapping with automated in-line motion correction.
Three long and three short axis views were acquired for inter-scanner comparison at identical slice positions.
A region of interest (ROI)...
Results
A total of 102 segments per patient were analysed consisting of 16 segments in the short axis and 18 in the long axis views obtained from the three different scanners.
The mean myocardial T2 value for all evaluated segments in all subjects was 45.7±3.4ms.
Except segment 14 (p=0.001) in the four chamber view and segment 10 (p=0.015) in the two chamber view no significant differences were found between the MRI scanners in all segments.
Conclusion
Reliable T2 relaxations times can be assessed with a dedicated software package at structurally identical 1.5 T MRI scanners.
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