Cardiac MRI at 3 Tesla - Challenges and Technical Solutions

Introduction Cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) has rapidly become the imaging method of choice for the diagnosis of cardiovascular disease, and its clinical indications have expanded greatly in the last decade [1]. Although the majority of CMR examinations is still performed at a field strength of 1.5 Tesla, the growing availability of 3 Tesla scanners has resulted in an increasing number of CMR examinations at higher field strengths [2,3]. One of the driving forces to migrate CMR to higher field strengths is the better signal-tonoise ratio, which can be used to improve spatial and/or temporal resolution. Over the last years it has been demonstrated that CMR at 3 Tesla has advantages in comparison to 1.5 Tesla in a number of applications, such as perfusion imaging [4-6]; delayed enhancement [7] myocardial tagging [8] and MR coronary angiography [9]. However, while clinical imaging at 3 Tesla has been rapidly adapted for neuro and musculoskeletal applications, the migration of CMR to higher field strengths has been slower. This is due to image artifacts [10] and issues arising from limitations such as specific absorption rate and field inhomogeneity. This presentation will describe these issues and the technical solutions for successful CMR at 3 Tesla.