MRI Heart Imaging

MRI Heart Imaging

Three-chamber view of the heart achieved using new high-magnetic-field MRI technology. (Image courtesy of Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin)

Scientists at the Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin and the Max-Delbrück-Center for Molecular Medicine (Berlin-Buch) have revolutionized technology for imaging the beating heart. Produced in one of the world's most powerful MRI systems, with power equivalent to 150,000 times Earth's magnetic field, the images provide much higher detail than standard cardiac images. The ultrahigh field approach also delineates clearly between blood and heart muscle. Even subtle anatomical structures are clearly visible. The new method could advance the capabilities of cardiac research and care, enabling earlier diagnosis, monitoring, and treatment of cardiac malfunctions, reports ScienceDaily.

To enable their technology the researchers developed new versions of multichannel transmit and receive antennas, known as radiofrequency coils. And to exploit the capacity and characteristics of the strong magnetic field, they developed a triggering device for synchronizing cardiac imaging with heart motion, eliminating the missynchronizations frequently encountered using conventional triggering devices and thus helping to generate crisp cardiac images.

"We correlate the image exposure with the heartbeat," explains Thoralf Niendorf, whose work is published in the Journal for Magnetic Resonance Imaging. "Our procedure is immune to interference with strong magnetic fields so that we can compensate for the motion of the heart, which results in high image quality free of cardiac motion–induced blurring and artifacts."

The imaging technology has resulted in images of the beating heart with a spatial resolution far superior to that achieved using existing technology. It is equivalent to converting a 10-megapixel digital camera into a 50-megapixel digital camera, the scientists say. Initial clinical results have been encouraging and are the driving force for broader clinical studies.