Improved dark blood imaging of the heart using radial balanced steady-state free precession

Table 2 Quantitative analysis of breath-hold and free-breathing scans in healthy volunteers

Measure	Protocol 1	Protocol 2	Protocol 3	Protocol 4	Protocol 5	ANOVA P-value
	bSSFP	bSSFP	bSSFP	FSE	FSE
	1 shot 72 views	1 shot 35 views	4 shots	BW305	BW977
CNR (breath-hold)	15.1 (4.3)^ab	13.6 (5.4)^ab	24.2 (7.2)^a	46.7 (17.6)	24.5 (13.8)^a	<0.001
tSNR (free-breathing)	7.0 (2.5)^abc	9.3 (1.8)^b	20.2 (5.2)	8.9 (3.0)^b	12.9 (6.6)	<0.001
Sharpness (breath-hold)	0.30 (0.10)	0.43 (0.03)^d	0.47 (0.09)^d	0.47 (0.07)	0.38 (0.13)^a	<0.01
Sharpness (free-breathing)	0.31 (0.10)^c	0.49 (0.11)	0.30 (0.06)^c	0.38 (0.11)	0.29 (0.08)^ac	<0.01

Data presented as mean (standard deviation) across n = 6 subjects, except for protocol 2 where n = 5. P values for ANOVA and post-hoc analyses derived from n = 5 paired data
^a P < 0.05 versus protocol 4, FSE BW305
^b P < 0.05 versus protocol 3, bSSFP 4shots
^c P < 0.05 versus protocol 2, bSSFP 1shot 35views
^d P < 0.05 versus protocol 1, bSSFP 1shot 72views
bSSFP balanced steady-state free precession, FSE fast spin echo, BW receiver bandwidth, ANOVA repeated-measures analysis of variance, CNR contrast-to-noise ratio, tSNR temporal signal-to-noise ratio

ISSN: 1532-429X