Customer Testimonial

"The FIESTA technique has been proven to be a very useful tool for the tracking of the myocardium over the entire heart cycle. Because of the application of ultra-short repetition times the temporal resolution of the FIESTA technique is superior to that of standard gradient echo CINE techniques. The acquisition of over 60 cardiac phases per R-R interval renders FIESTA suitable for the assessment of the cardiac function."
– Oliver Strohm, MD

Overview

The established integrated cardiovascular MRI (CVMR) examination includes the assessment of the cardiac function using breath-held CINE techniques. Modern clinical CVMR scanners are designed to eliminate cardiac and blood motion artifacts by using fast imaging techniques so that the position of the myocardium can be tracked over the entire heart cycle. FIESTA is a unique fast imaging technique, which uses ultra-short repetition times. Hence it allows the full R-R interval acquisition of over 60 cardiac phases in a single breath-hold which is of clinical relevance for the assessment of the cardiac function.*

Clinical Benefits

The FIESTA technique provides high contrast between myocardial tissue and the ventricular cavity. This allows exact determination of both systolic and diastolic function and may be used to create time-volume-curves of the left and right ventricle. To evaluate diastolic function, coverage of the entire heart cycle is mandatory. The acquisition time should be in the range of a short breath-hold to avoid motion problems. With FIESTA, more than 60 phases can be scanned within a single breath-hold, providing excellent temporal resolution and thus allowing a high quality study of left ventricular function and of valvular function. For a similar clinical protocol using gradient echo CINE it is possible to obtain only approximately 40 phases in the same scan time.

Four chamber view (only every third image of a full R-R interval data set is shown) of a patient with myocarditis but normal left ventricular function is demonstrated. The exact time point of maximal systolic contraction and the diastolic filling can easily be evaluated because of the temporal resolution of the FIESTA technique.

Imaging Protocol

Sequence: FIESTA

Key Technology

2D CINE FIESTA

Clinical Specifications

100% R-R coverage up to 60 fps temporal resolution with phased-array SNR

* Conventional FastCINE also supports full R-R imaging at ~40 phases per R-R interval.