Multicontrast delayed enhancement provides improved contrast between myocardial infarction and blood pool

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Abstract
Purpose: To develop and test a delayed‐enhancement imaging method for improving the contrast between myocardial infarction (MI) and blood pool.Materials and Methods: The T2 of blood is significantly longer than that of acute or chronic MI. The proposed multicontrast delayed‐enhancement (MCODE) imaging method produces a series of images with both T1 and T2 weightings, which provides both excellent contrast between normal and infarcted myocardium, and between blood and MI.Results: The subendocardial border between MI and blood pool was easily discriminated in the T2‐weighted image. The measured MI‐to‐blood contrast‐to‐noise ratio (CNR) was better in the T2‐weighted image than in the T1‐weighted image (22.5 ± 8.7 vs. 2.9 ± 3.1, mean ± SD, N = 11, P < 0.001, for TrueFISP, and 19.4 ± 10.8 vs. 3.9 ± 2.3, N = 11, P < 0.001, for TurboFLASH).Conclusion: The MCODE method provides a significant improvement in the ability to easily discriminate subendocardial MI by providing a T2‐weighted image with high contrast between blood and MI. MCODE should improve both the detection and accurate sizing of MI. J. Magn. Reson. Imaging 2005. Published by Wiley‐Liss, Inc.