Abstract
PURPOSE: To study the feasibility of black-blood contrast in native T(1) mapping for reduction of partial voluming at the blood-myocardium interface. METHODS: A saturation pulse prepared heart-rate-independent inversion recovery (SAPPHIRE) T(1) mapping sequence was combined with motion-sensitized driven-equilibrium (MSDE) blood suppression for black-blood T(1) mapping at 3 Tesla. Phantom scans were performed to assess the T(1) time accuracy. In vivo black-blood and conventional SAPPHIRE T(1) mapping was performed in eight healthy subjects and analyzed for T(1) times, precision, and inter- and intraobserver variability. Furthermore, manually drawn regions of interest (ROIs) in all T(1) maps were dilated and eroded to analyze the dependence of septal T(1) times on the ROI thickness. RESULTS: Phantom results and in vivo myocardial T(1) times show comparable accuracy with black-blood compared to conventional SAPPHIRE (in vivo: black-blood: 1562 ± 56 ms vs. conventional: 1583 ± 58 ms, P = 0.20); Using black-blood SAPPHIRE precision was significantly lower (standard deviation: 133.9 ± 24.6 ms vs. 63.1 ± 6.4 ms, P < .0001), and blood T(1) time measurement was not possible. Significantly increased interobserver interclass correlation coefficient (ICC) (0.996 vs. 0.967, P = 0.011) and similar intraobserver ICC (0.979 vs. 0.939, P = 0.11) was obtained with the black-blood sequence. Conventional SAPPHIRE showed strong dependence on the ROI thickness (R(2) = 0.99). No such trend was observed using the black-blood approach (R(2) = 0.29). CONCLUSION: Black-blood SAPPHIRE successfully eliminates partial voluming at the blood pool in native myocardial T(1) mapping while providing accurate T(1) times, albeit at a reduced precision. Magn Reson Med 78:484-493, 2017. © 2016 International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine.