Real-time assessment of right and left ventricular volumes and function in patients with congenital heart disease by using high spatiotemporal resolution radial k-t SENSE.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to compare ventricular volumes in patients with congenital heart disease measured by using (a) a cardiac gated sequence, (b) a standard real-time sequence, and (c) a radial real-time k-space and time (k-t) sensitivity encoding (SENSE) sequence.

Materials And Methods: The local research ethics committee approved this study, and written consent was obtained from all participants. Of 40 patients with congenital heart disease, ventricular volumes were measured by using the three sequences. Global image quality and motion fidelity were scored and compared with a Wilcoxon signed rank test. Image contrast, edge sharpness, and summed perimeters (the total length of the endocardial tracings for a given ventricle at systole and diastole) were quantified and compared by using paired t tests. Ventricular volumes were compared with paired t tests, Bland-Altman analysis, and correlation coefficients.

Results: Global image quality, motion fidelity, image contrast, edge sharpness, and summed perimeters were all greater for radial real-time k-t SENSE imaging compared with standard real-time imaging (P < .05). However, the gated acquisitions were significantly superior to radial real-time k-t SENSE (P < .05). For cardiac gated versus radial k-t real-time acquisitions, there was no difference between right ventricular (RV) volumes and ejection fraction (EF) (P > .15). There was a small difference in left ventricular (LV) end-diastolic volume (EDV) and thus, LV stroke volume and EF (P < .05). For cardiac gated versus standard real-time acquisitions, both RV and LV EDV and thus, stroke volume and EF were significantly lower (P < .05).

Conclusion: Ventricular volumes and function can be accurately quantified by using radial k-t SENSE real-time imaging.