Coronary MRA Techniques Without Breathholding

Summary and ConclusionTechnical development, animal studies, and clinical trials have demonstrated that it is now feasible to image coronary arteries and detect significant stenoses without the need for breathhold. The major advantages of nonbreathhold imaging are the patient-friendliness and the ability to obtain high resolution images (both 2-D and 3-D). Nonbreathhold techniques will also permit high spatial and temporal resolution, high signal-tonoise, complete registration of slice positions acquired from different scans, and the possibility of 3-D data acquisition with high spatial resolution and large volume coverage, which are crucial for coronary artery visualization. Further evaluation and developments are needed to improve various respiratory gating and motion correction techniques to make them a powerful clinical tool for coronary artery imaging.