Advanced Cardiac

Features

1-click change from FLASH to TrueFISP for easy contrast optimization, 1-click to switch arrhythmia rejection on/off, 1-click change from Cartesian to radial sampling to increase effective image resolution (e.g. in pediatric patients) and avoid folding artifacts in large patients, 1-click switch from cine imaging to tagging for wall motion evaluation, 1-click switch from 2D to 3D imaging, BEAT automatically adjusts all parameters associated with the changes.

Clinical Applications

Ventricular function and regional wall motion evaluation: Retrospectively triggered TrueFISP with iPAT for full coverage of the cardiac cycle, T-PAT with GRAPPA for highly accelerated image acquisition, arrythmia rejection for patients with extrasystoles. 3D cine imaging, complete coverage of the heart in just one go. Visualization of myocardial contractility using various tagging techniques.

Cardiac and vessel morphology: High resolution morphological imaging using bright- and dark-blood sequences with free breathing. Multiple contrasts such as T1- and T2-weighted imaging for use in diseases such as myocarditis (inflammation/hyperaemia), ARVD (fibrous-fatty degeneration) or acute myocardial infarction (edema).

Dynamic myocardial imaging with BEAT: Ultra-fast, high-SNR sequences for dynamic imaging using TurboFLASH,TrueFISP or GRE EPI for the detection of significant coronary artery disease.

Tissue characterization with BEAT: Highly robust and reproducible late enhancement imaging with IR (inversion recovery) and PSIR (phase-sensitive inversion recovery) technique for myocardial tissue characterization, e.g. after myocardial infarction or for differentiation of cardiomyopathies.

Coronary imaging with BEAT: Dedicated 2D and 3D sequences for high-resolution coronary artery imaging, providing free-breathing and breath-hold techniques.

Vessel wall imaging: High-resolution sequences and protocols for vessel wall imaging (e.g. atherosclerotic plaque characterization) in small or large vessels.