Total removal of unwanted harmonic peaks (TruHARP) MRI for single breath-hold high-resolution myocardial motion and strain quantification.

Current MRI methods for myocardial motion and strain quantification have limited resolution because of Fourier space spectral peak interference. Methods have been proposed to remove this interference in order to improve resolution; however, these methods are clinically impractical due to the prolonged imaging times. In this paper, we propose total removal of unwanted harmonic peaks (TruHARP); a myocardial motion and strain quantification methodology that uses a novel single breath-hold MR image acquisition protocol. In post-processing, TruHARP separates the spectral peaks in the acquired images, enabling high-resolution motion and strain quantification. The impact of high resolution on calculated circumferential and radial strains is studied using realistic Monte Carlo simulations, and the improvement in strain maps is demonstrated in six human subjects.