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SJTU CARDIAC MRI LAB
Overall Statement
Cardiac diseases are an important part of cardiovascular disease, which is the leading cause of death in China and all around the world. However, while MRI has numerous unparalleled advantages, such as non-invasiveness, free of ionized radiation, and a versatile contrast mechanism for tissue characterization, MRI has been considered as a highly challenged tool to use in the fast-pace clinical environment.
The primary goal of our lab is to improve the accuracy, speed, and robustness of MRI techniques for better assessment of various cardiac diseases. For example, our lab has developed a range of techniques
1) to improve the image quality/motion robustness of cardiac MRI using novel pulse sequences under a variety of non-ideal clinical scenario, including intense cardiac motion, arrhythmias (irregular heartbeats), failed breath-holding, and
2) to improve the image resolution without incurring a longer scan time by developing novel fast imaging and reconstruction methods.
One of our past major endeavors was to improve the image quality and robustness of cardiac MRI in the clinical setting. Below, we proposed a novel reverse double inversion-recovery (RDIR) turbo spin echo (TSE) imaging method to improve the image quality of this commonly used pulse sequence in the presence of strong cardiac motion. This work won the prestigious ISMRM Moore Young Investigator Award in 2018. (https://www.ismrm.org/18m/2018-yia-winners/; https://medicine.yale.edu/mrrc/home/news/)
Another important part of our research is to improve image resolution of cardiac MRI, especially for quantitative cardiac MRI, such as cardiac T1 mapping and T2 mapping. Below, we proposed high-resolution single-breath-hold T1 and T2 mapping methods, based on a novel fast quantitative MRI reconstruction algorithm SUPER (Shift Undersampling improves Parametric mapping Efficiency and Resolution) that was developed by our group. The new imaging methods increased resolution by an overall factor of 2.5 without increasing scan time or causing too much noise. Part of the work won SCMR Early Career Award nomination in 2018.
Figure above: tranditional cardiac T1 mapping vs high-resolution T1 mapping
Figure above: tranditional cardiac T2 mapping vs high-resolution T2 mapping (SCMR 2019)
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