Real-time interactive coronary MRA.

An interactive real-time imaging system capable of rapid coronary artery imaging is described. High-resolution spiral and circular echo planar trajectories were used to achieve 0.8 x 1.6 mm2 resolution in 135 ms (CEPI) or 1.13 x 1.13 mm2 resolution in 189 ms (spirals), over a 20-cm FOV. Using a sliding window reconstruction, display rates of up to 37 images/sec were achieved. Initial results indicate this technique can perform as a high-quality 2D coronary localizer and with SNR improvement may enable rapid screening of the coronary tree. Copyright 2001 Wiley-Liss, Inc.