Assessments of coronary artery disease and ventricular function are crucial elements for heart health evaluation. The goal of this research is to develop 4D magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) techniques that provide a non-invasive and effective cardiac imaging examination, including assessing coronary artery disease (CAD) and both left (LV) and right ventricular (RV) function. Echocardiography (ECHO) is widely used to assess function but is limited to 2D views of the anatomy. It has poor ability to measure RV dimensions given the position, trabeculations, and complex anatomy of the RV. CT angiography (CTA) provides non-invasive assessment of CAD and ventricular function, however it involves exposure to ionizing radiation and risk of nephrotoxicity from iodinated contrast agents. Adequate CTA generally requires the use of beta blockers and is improved by the administration of nitroglycerin, both of which are contraindicated for certain patients. Coronary angiography (CA) is the definitive study for identifying the presence of CAD, but it is invasive, costly in bot dollar terms and patient morbidity, and provides no assessment of ventricular function. Cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) offers several powerful capabilities. It is the gold standard for quantitating ventricular function with 2D breath-hold cine acquisitions. Whole-heart coronary MRA centered on mid-diastole has also been demonstrated without contrast injection. However, both applications are limited by the challenges posed by cardiac and breathing motion. Cardiac function quantitation on 2D MRI suffers from breathing inconsistencies and consequent slice-to-slice spatial misregistration, particularly when patients, such as lung transplantation candidates, are unable to perform even a short breath-hold. Inconsistent breathing and selection of a fixed window at mid-diastole results in unacceptable scan times and reduces image quality in coronary studies since some coronary segments are not quiescent at that time. In this research we aim to: 1) develop self-gated free-breathing 4D cardiac MRI with novel self-gating, motion correction, and advanced image reconstruction methods;2) optimize a 4D MRI protocol for cardiac function imaging and coronary artery imaging;and 3) implement the optimized methods in assessment of cardiac patients. Successful implementation of the proposed 4D cardiac MRI will not only be important for assessing CAD and ventricular function, but will be generalizable to conditions requiring similar capabilities, such as evaluation of valve disease, enhanced imaging of ischemic myocardium and assessment of vascular compliance. This will offer improved care for the vast population of patients with these conditions and financial benefits for the health car system.

Public Health Relevance

This project aims to develop new MRI methods that will provide the capability to measure 3D cardiac structures at multiple time points through the cardiac cycle. This will provide improved capabilities for measuring cardiac function and verification of the absence of coronary artery disease. In particular, this would allow effective and efficient evaluation of heart health for patients who have no satisfactory alternative imaging approaches.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB)
Type
Mentored Quantitative Research Career Development Award (K25)
Project #
1K25EB014914-01A1
Application #
8443127
Study Section
Special Emphasis Panel (ZEB1-OSR-B (O1))
Program Officer
Erim, Zeynep
Project Start
2012-09-30
Project End
2017-08-31
Budget Start
2012-09-30
Budget End
2013-08-31
Support Year
1
Fiscal Year
2012
Total Cost
$168,626
Indirect Cost
$11,176
Name
University of California San Francisco
Department
Radiation-Diagnostic/Oncology
Type
Schools of Medicine
DUNS #
094878337
City
San Francisco
State
CA
Country
United States
Zip Code
94143
Liu, Jing; Koskas, Louise; Faraji, Farshid et al. (2018) Highly accelerated intracranial 4D flow MRI: evaluation of healthy volunteers and patients with intracranial aneurysms. MAGMA 31:295-307
Wang, Yan; Seguro, Florent; Kao, Evan et al. (2017) Segmentation of lumen and outer wall of abdominal aortic aneurysms from 3D black-blood MRI with a registration based geodesic active contour model. Med Image Anal 40:1-10
Liu, Jing; Feng, Li; Shen, Hsin-Wei et al. (2017) Highly-accelerated self-gated free-breathing 3D cardiac cine MRI: validation in assessment of left ventricular function. MAGMA 30:337-346
Liu, Jing; Pedoia, Valentina; Heilmeier, Ursula et al. (2016) High-temporospatial-resolution dynamic contrast-enhanced (DCE) wrist MRI with variable-density pseudo-random circular Cartesian undersampling (CIRCUS) acquisition: evaluation of perfusion in rheumatoid arthritis patients. NMR Biomed 29:15-23
Zhu, Chengcheng; Haraldsson, Henrik; Faraji, Farshid et al. (2016) Isotropic 3D black blood MRI of abdominal aortic aneurysm wall and intraluminal thrombus. Magn Reson Imaging 34:18-25
Zhu, Yanchun; Liu, Jing; Weinsaft, Jonathan et al. (2015) Free-Breathing 3D Imaging of Right Ventricular Structure and Function Using Respiratory and Cardiac Self-Gated Cine MRI. Biomed Res Int 2015:819102
Saloner, David; Liu, Jing; Haraldsson, Henrik (2015) MR physics in practice: how to optimize acquisition quality and time for cardiac MR imaging. Magn Reson Imaging Clin N Am 23:1-6
Liu, Jing; Nguyen, Thanh D; Zhu, Yanchun et al. (2014) Self-gated free-breathing 3D coronary CINE imaging with simultaneous water and fat visualization. PLoS One 9:e89315
Liu, Jing; Glenn, Orit A; Xu, Duan (2014) Fast, free-breathing, in vivo fetal imaging using time-resolved 3D MRI technique: preliminary results. Quant Imaging Med Surg 4:123-8
Liu, Jing; Saloner, David (2014) Accelerated MRI with CIRcular Cartesian UnderSampling (CIRCUS): a variable density Cartesian sampling strategy for compressed sensing and parallel imaging. Quant Imaging Med Surg 4:57-67

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