Comparison of left and right ventricular dimensions, systolic and diastolic function between 1.0T Open MRI and 1.5T cylindrical MRI

Background Cardiac MRI is the reference standard for cardiac morphology and functional assessment of left and right ventricular (LV,RV) end-diastolic and -systolic volumes (EDV, ESV), stroke volume (SV), ejection fraction (EF) and myocardial mass (Mass) due to its high image resolution tissue differentiation. Because of its cylindrical shape and resulting spatial restrictions, a significant amount of obese and claustrophobic patients, at least 10-15%, cannot be studied at all or only with higher amounts of sedation. Recently, 1.0T open MRI, which offers more space due to its different magnet architecture, has been introduced mainly for orthopaedic purposes but until now has rarely been used for cardiovascular functional measurements. We sought to investigate the performance of 1.0T open MRI for cardiovascular function and to compare LVand RV-EDV, -ESV, -SV, -EF, longitudinal RV and LV function and Mass for both 1.0 and 1.5T.