Comparison of different cardiovascular magnetic resonance sequences for native myocardial T1 mapping at 3T

Background: T1 mapping based on cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR) is a novel approach using the magnetic relaxation T1 time as a quantitative marker for myocardial tissue composition. Various T1 mapping sequences are being used, with different strengths and weaknesses. Data comparing different sequences head to head however are sparse. Methods: We compared three T1 mapping sequences, ShMOLLI, MOLLI and SASHA in phantoms and in a mid-ventricular slice of 40 healthy individuals (mean age 59 +/- 7 years, 45 % male) with low (68 %) or moderate cardiovascular risk. We calculated global and segmental T1 in vivo through exponential curve fitting and subsequent parametric mapping. We also analyzed image quality and inter-observer reproducibility. Results: There was no association of T1 with cardiovascular risk groups. T1 however differed significantly depending on the sequence, with SASHA providing consistently higher mean values than ShMOLLI and MOLLI (1487 +/- 36 ms vs. 1174 +/- 37 ms and 1199 +/- 28 ms, respectively; p < 0.001). This difference between sequences was much smaller in phantom measurements. In patients, segmental values were lower in the anterior wall for all sequences. Image quality, in general good for the steady-state-free-precession readouts in all sequences, was lower for SASHA parametric maps. On multivariate regression analysis, a longer T1 measured by MOLLI was correlated with lower ejection fraction and female gender. Inter-observer variability as assessed by intra-class correlation coefficients was excellent for all sequences (ShMOLLI: 0.995; MOLLI: 0.991; SASHA: 0.961; all p < 0.001). Conclusion: In a cross-sectional population with low to moderate cardiovascular risk, we observed a variation in T1 mapping results between inversion-recovery vs. saturation-recovery sequences in vivo, which were less evident in phantom images, despite a small interobserver variability. Thus, physiological factors, most likely related to B1 inhomogeneities, and tissue-specific properties, like magnetization transfer, that impact T1 values in vivo, render phantom validation insufficient, and have to be further investigated for a better understanding of the clinical utility of different T1 mapping approaches.