114 The Relationship between signal intensity and myocardial gadolinium concentration for three MR perfusion pulse sequences: implications for measuring absolute myocardial blood flow

Abstract

Calculation of absolute myocardial blood flow from magnetic resonance first-pass perfusion studies by deconvolution requires a linear relationship between signal intensity (SI) and gadolinium concentration [Gd] in both the blood pool and the myocardium. We measured this relationship in canine myocardium for three common perfusion pulse sequences. Inversion recovery-prepared single-shot steady-state free-precession demonstrates excellent myocardial signal enhancement and a linear SI-[Gd] relationship. Saturation recovery-prepared segmented echo-planar-imaging and saturation recovery-prepared turbo fast low-angle shot exhibit less robust myocardial signal enhancement and a curvilinear SI-[Gd] relationship. This nonlinear signal response may result in underestimation of absolute myocardial blood flow.