Objective: To develop a non-iterative method for applying elliptical field-of-view (FOV) to radial imaging and evaluate it for Stack-Of-Stars (SOS) with variable radial density in the kz direction. Materials and methods: New analytic expressions were derived to compute the radial profile angles for an elliptical FOV with and without golden angle sampling. With a major-to-minor-axis FOV ratio of 1:0.5, anisotropic FOV and variable density SOS were evaluated, using point spread function analysis, phantom imaging, and in vivo pelvic imaging. Results: Compared with conventional SOS, elliptical density in kz reduced scan time by 20%, while maintaining similar levels of radial aliasing artifacts. Anisotropic FOV reduced scan time by 31%, resulting in similar levels of radial aliasing artifacts at low undersampling for objects with matching in-plane anisotropy. Combining both techniques resulted in a 45% scan time reduction. Alternatively, when compared to conventional SOS using identical scan time, variable density and anisotropic FOV both displayed a lower level of radial aliasing artifacts, although for anisotropic FOV this effect was less pronounced at higher undersampling. Discussion: Variable density and anisotropic FOV can reduce scan time and/or reduce aliasing artifacts for SOS. The new analytical expressions for elliptical FOV will facilitate future studies on anisotropic FOV radial imaging.

Purpose: To develop a free-breathing (FB) 2D radial balanced steady-state free precession cine cardiac MRI method with 100% respiratory gating efficiency using respiratory auto-calibrated motion correction (RAMCO) based on a motion-sensing camera. Methods: The signal from a respiratory motion-sensing camera was recorded during a FB retrospectively electrocardiogram triggered 2D radial balanced steady-state free precession acquisition using pseudo–tiny-golden-angle ordering. With RAMCO, for each acquisition the respiratory signal was retrospectively auto-calibrated by applying different linear translations, using the resulting in-plane image sharpness as a criterium. The auto-calibration determines the optimal magnitude of the linear translations for each of the in-plane directions to minimize motion blurring caused by bulk respiratory motion. Additionally, motion-weighted density compensation was applied during radial gridding to minimize through-plane and non-bulk motion blurring. Left ventricular functional parameters and sharpness scores of FB radial cine were compared with and without RAMCO, and additionally with conventional breath-hold Cartesian cine on 9 volunteers. Results: FB radial cine with RAMCO had similar sharpness scores as conventional breath-hold Cartesian cine and the left ventricular functional parameters agreed. For FB radial cine, RAMCO reduced respiratory motion artifacts with a statistically significant difference in sharpness scores (P < 0.05) compared to reconstructions without motion correction. Conclusion: 2D radial cine imaging with RAMCO allows evaluation of left ventricular functional parameters in FB with 100% respiratory efficiency. It eliminates the need for breath-holds, which is especially valuable for patients with no or impaired breath-holding capacity. Validation of the proposed method on patients is warranted.

Purpose: To develop a new 3D radial trajectory based on the natural spiral phyllotaxis (SP), with variable anisotropic FOV. Theory & Methods: A 3D radial trajectory based on the SP with favorable interleaving properties for cardiac imaging has been proposed by Piccini et al (Magn Reson Med. 2011;66:1049-1056), which supports a FOV with a fixed anisotropy. However, a fixed anisotropy can be inefficient when sampling objects with different anisotropic dimensions. We extend Larson’s 3D radial method to provide variable anisotropic FOV for spiral phyllotaxis (VASP). Simulations were performed to measure distance between successive projections, analyze point spread functions, and compare aliasing artifacts for both VASP and conventional SP. VASP was fully implemented on a whole-body clinical MR scanner. Phantom and in vivo cardiac images were acquired at 1.5 tesla. Results: Simulations, phantom, and in vivo experiments confirmed that VASP can achieve variable anisotropic FOV while maintaining the favorable interleaving properties of SP. For an anisotropic FOV with 100:100:35 ratio, VASP required ~65% fewer radial projections than the conventional SP to satisfy Nyquist criteria. Alternatively, when the same number of radial projections were used as in conventional SP, VASP produced fewer aliasing artifacts for anisotropic objects within the excited imaging volumes. Conclusion: We have developed a new method (VASP), which enables variable anisotropic FOV for 3D radial trajectory with SP. For anisotropic objects within the excited imaging volumes, VASP can reduce scan times and/or reduce aliasing artifacts.