Krishna Nayak

This talk will briefly review CMR perfusion imaging strategies, including contrast-enhanced first-pass imaging (most commonly used method), and non-contrast enhanced blood oxygen level dependent imaging and arterial spin labeling imaging.  Then we will cover how to image the myocardium with high time and signal-to-noise ratio efficiency.  This will include balanced SSFP strategies, EPI strategies, and simultaneous multi-slice imaging.

Smita Sampath

Quantitative cardiac perfusion MRI is a non-invasive radiation-free technique that can estimate absolute myocardial blood flow (MBF) and myocardial perfusion reserve (MPR), which are known to be good indicators of ischemic burden in CAD patients, as well as of hemodynamic significance of stenotic lesions.  Further, there is growing evidence that MBF and MPR may be sensitive biomarkers of microvascular ischemia.  A typical perfusion MRI experiment involves the administration of contrast agents to capture the wash-in wash-out characteristics of the arterial input function and the tissue output function at rest and during pharmacologically induced stress.  The functions are then modeled using either compartmental modeling approaches or deconvolution approaches to extract myocardial blood flow at the two experimental states from which myocardial perfusion reserve is quantitated.  This module will focus on presenting contrast agents and mechanisms involved, typical protocols, sequences and stress agents used, as well as discuss in detail the perfusion models used for quantitative data analysis.