Jianing Pang

Whole-heart coronary MRA with 100% respiratory gating efficiency: Self-navigated three-dimensional retrospective image-based motion correction (TRIM)

To develop a three‐dimensional retrospective image‐based motion correction technique for whole‐heart coronary MRA with self‐navigation that eliminates both the need to setup a diaphragm navigator and gate the acquisition.

ECG and navigator-free four-dimensional whole-heart coronary MRA for simultaneous visualization of cardiac anatomy and function

To develop a cardiac and respiratory self‐gated four‐dimensional (4D) coronary MRA technique for simultaneous cardiac anatomy and function visualization.

Four-dimensional MRI using three-dimensional radial sampling with respiratory self-gating to characterize temporal phase-resolved respiratory motion in the abdomen

To develop a four‐dimensional MRI (4D‐MRI) technique to characterize the average respiratory tumor motion for abdominal radiotherapy planning.

Accelerated whole-heart coronary MRA using motion-corrected sensitivity encoding with three-dimensional projection reconstruction

To achieve whole‐heart coronary magnetic resonance angiography (MRA) with (1.0 mm)3 spatial resolution and 5 min of free‐breathing scan time.

Improved black‐blood imaging using DANTE‐SPACE for simultaneous carotid and intracranial vessel wall evaluation

The purpose of this study was to develop a three‐dimensional black blood imaging method for simultaneously evaluating the carotid and intracranial arterial vessel walls with high spatial resolution and excellent blood suppression with and without contrast enhancement.

Free-breathing, motion-corrected, highly efficient whole heart T2 mapping at 3T with hybrid radial-cartesian trajectory.

To develop and test a time‐efficient, free‐breathing, whole heart T2 mapping technique at 3.0T.

Four-Dimensional Magnetic Resonance Imaging With 3-Dimensional Radial Sampling and Self-Gating-Based K-Space Sorting: Early Clinical Experience on Pancreatic Cancer Patients.

PURPOSE To apply a novel self-gating k-space sorted 4-dimensional MRI (SG-KS-4D-MRI) method to overcome limitations due to anisotropic resolution and rebinning artifacts and to monitor pancreatic tumor motion. METHODS AND MATERIALS Ten patients were imaged using 4D-CT, cine 2-dimensional MRI (2D-MRI), and the SG-KS-4D-MRI, which is a spoiled gradient recalled echo sequence with 3-dimensional radial-sampling k-space projections and 1-dimensional projection-based self-gating. Tumor volumes were defined on all phases in both 4D-MRI and 4D-CT and then compared. RESULTS An isotropic resolution of 1.56 mm was achieved in the SG-KS-4D-MRI images, which showed superior soft-tissue contrast to 4D-CT and appeared to be free of stitching artifacts. The tumor motion trajectory cross-correlations (mean ± SD) between SG-KS-4D-MRI and cine 2D-MRI in superior-inferior, anterior-posterior, and medial-lateral directions were 0.93 ± 0.03, 0.83 ± 0.10, and 0.74 ± 0.18, respectively. The tumor motion trajectories cross-correlations between SG-KS-4D-MRI and 4D-CT in superior-inferior, anterior-posterior, and medial-lateral directions were 0.91 ± 0.06, 0.72 ± 0.16, and 0.44 ± 0.24, respectively. The average standard deviation of gross tumor volume calculated from the 10 breathing phases was 0.81 cm(3) and 1.02 cm(3) for SG-KS-4D-MRI and 4D-CT, respectively (P=.012). CONCLUSIONS A novel SG-KS-4D-MRI acquisition method capable of reconstructing rebinning artifact-free, high-resolution 4D-MRI images was used to quantify pancreas tumor motion. The resultant pancreatic tumor motion trajectories agreed well with 2D-cine-MRI and 4D-CT. The pancreatic tumor volumes shown in the different phases for the SG-KS-4D-MRI were statistically significantly more consistent than those in the 4D-CT.

Diagnostic Performance of Self-navigated Whole-Heart Contrast-enhanced Coronary 3-T MR Angiography

Purpose To evaluate the diagnostic performance of self-navigated whole-heart coronary 3-T magnetic resonance (MR) angiography by using conventional invasive coronary angiography (ICA) as the reference gold standard. Materials and Methods This study was approved by the local ethics committee. Written informed consent was obtained from each patient before the study. Thirty-nine consecutive patients underwent coronary MR angiography and later underwent ICA. Coronary MR angiography was performed with a 3-T imager with contrast agent enhancement during free breathing with self-navigated affine motion correction reconstruction. Coronary segments with reference diameters larger than 1.5 mm were included in the comparison between coronary MR angiography and ICA. The coronary MR angiography images were evaluated by two experienced readers blinded to the ICA results to identify significant luminal narrowing (>50% diameter reduction in reference ICA). Sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, negative predictive value, and accuracy were performed to detect significant coronary artery stenosis. Results Coronary MR angiography examinations were successfully performed in all 39 patients. A total of 327 coronary segments had reference luminal diameter larger than 1.5 mm. Of these 327 coronary segments, 303 (92.7%) segments had a quality score greater than 1 at coronary MR angiography and were included in the analysis. The sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, negative predictive value, and accuracy were 78.2%, 75.0%, 81.8%, 70.6%, and 76.9%, respectively, on a per-patient basis. Conclusion Contrast-enhanced self-navigated coronary 3-T MR angiography is a promising technique for the noninvasive detection of clinically significant coronary stenosis.

In vivo diffusion-tensor MRI of the human heart on a 3 tesla clinical scanner: An optimized second order (M2) motion compensated diffusion-preparation approach.

To optimize a diffusion‐prepared balanced steady‐state free precession cardiac MRI (CMR) technique to perform diffusion‐tensor CMR (DT‐CMR) in humans on a 3 Tesla clinical scanner

High efficiency coronary MR angiography with nonrigid cardiac motion correction.

To improve the coronary visualization quality of four‐dimensional (4D) coronary MR angiography (MRA) through cardiac motion correction and iterative reconstruction.