Patent ID: 7418288

Claim:
A method for acquiring image data pertaining to a moving heart, the method comprising: in a scout process concurrently: acquiring MR image data in stacks of scout scan planes between extreme positions of motion during a cardiac cycle and a respiratory cycle, the stack of scout scan planes including a plurality of scout scan planes, acquiring ECG data, monitoring a position of a lung/liver transition plane; in a registration process: determining a position of a selected portion of the heart in the acquired stacks of scout scan planes, registering a relationship between cardiac positions in each scout scan plane of the stack of scout scan planes and the ECG data and the lung/liver transition plane, during a real-time MR imaging process in which image data is acquired in each of a multiplicity of imaging scan planes arranged in a stack: acquiring the ECG data; monitoring the position of the lung/liver interface; in accordance with the determined registered relation between the ECG data and the lung/liver transition plane relative to the cardiac position in each of the scout scan planes in the stack, determining a positional offset corresponding to each of the image scan planes; adjusting a position of each imaging scan plane in accordance with the corresponding determined positional offset, such that the imaging scan planes in the stack are positionally adjusted differently.