Patent ID: 9121915
Filing Date: 2015-09-01
Classification: A61B,G01R

Abstract:
1. A 5-dimensional magnetic resonance (MR) imaging method of a patient's heart, comprising: (a) in a patient free-breathing magnetic resonance imaging study of said patient's heart, a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) computer system acquiring 3-dimensional volumetric spatial information of said patient's heart and concurrently recording cardiac and respiratory cycles of said patient, wherein said 3-dimensional volumetric spatial information is sampled with a non-Cartesian 3-dimensional k-space readout trajectory which is incorporated into a magnetic resonance imaging sequence, wherein said MRI computer system acquisition comprises a plurality of MRI acquisition segments of a plurality of readouts of said heart, whereby each segment is repeated multiple times in order to cover the at least a full period of a cardiac cycle and at least a full period of a respiratory cycle of said patient, wherein the MRI computer system combines the acquired 3-dimensional volumetric spatial information of the non-Cartesian 3-dimensional K-space readout trajectory in the MRI sequence with the plurality of readouts of the heart representing said at least full period of the cardiac cycle and said at least full period respiratory cycle, whereby the plurality of readouts of said heart for both the cardiac and respiratory cycles are defined as 2-dimensional non-spatial information in order to form a 5-dimensional data map of the patient's heart; and (b) for each cardiac and respiratory temporal phase combination in said recorded cycles, said MRI computer system displaying at least one of the 3-dimensional volumetric spatial measurements of the atria and ventricles of said patient's heart, together with either the rate of change, minimum, maximum, or slope of these volume based measurements with respect to each of said cardiac and respiratory cycles, wherein the MRI system computer displays 3 of the 5 dimensions that are selected from the 5-dimensional data map, and wherein at least one non-spatial dimension is displayed as one of the 3 dimensions selected from the 5-dimensional data map that is displayed.