Fig. 3

Short-axis bright-blood and dark-blood LGE images of a subject with myocardial infarction. Panel a: Conventional bright-blood phase sensitive inversion recovery (PSIR) LGE images of the short-axis from base to apex, which show a subendocardial infarction of the basal and mid inferolateral and lateral wall, and near-transmural infarction of the apical lateral wall. The short-axis views obtained by bright-blood LGE could not accurately visualize the transmural extent of the myocardial infarction Panel b: Dark-blood PSIR LGE images of the same views. In contrast to conventional bright-blood LGE (as shown in panel a), the short-axis views obtained by dark-blood LGE allowed clear delineation of the myocardial infarction (blue arrows). Furthermore, focal subendocardial LGE was detected in the apical septum (orange arrow), which was missed using bright-blood LGE only. Please note the presence of minor image artefacts caused by respirational motion, which are not inherently related to the proposed dark-blood LGE and are visible on both conventional as well as dark-blood LGE images. In this case, conventional LGE and dark-blood LGE were performed at 10 min and 20 min post-injection, respectively. For specific scan details, see ‘Philips Achieva TX’ at Table 1