Free breathing motion corrected pixel-wise MRI myocardial T1 parameter mapping

US10264994B2 · kind B2 · utility

Assignees

• Siemens Healthcare Limited · DE
• The United States of America, as represented by the Secretary, Department of Health and Human Services · US

Inventors

• Bruce S. Spottiswoode · Knoxville, US
• Peter Kellman · Bethesda, US

Key dates

• Filing date: May 16, 2016
• Grant date: Apr 23, 2019
• Expiry date: May 13, 2037

Classification

• Technology area (CPC G): Physics
• CPC primary: G16H30/40
• WIPO field: Medical technology
• WIPO sector: Instruments

Abstract

A method for performing free breathing pixel-wise myocardial T1 parameter mapping includes performing a free-breathing scan of a cardiac region at a plurality of varying saturation recovery times to acquire a k-space dataset; generating an image dataset based on the k-space dataset; and performing a respiratory motion correction process on the image dataset. The respiratory motion correction process comprises selecting a target image from the image dataset, co-registering each image in the image dataset to the target image to determine a spatial alignment measurement for each image, and identifying a subset of the image dataset comprising images with the spatial alignment measurement above a predetermined value. Following the respiratory motion correction process, a pixel-wise fitting is performed on the image dataset to estimate T1 relaxation time values for the cardiac region. Then, a pixel-map of the cardiac region is produced depicting the T1 relaxation time values.