In-vivo cardiac DTI: An initial comparison of M012 compensated spin-echo and STEAM

Background In-vivo cardiac diffusion tensor imaging (cDTI) has been performed using a stimulated echo (STEAM) sequence for 20 years [1]. While short diffusion gradients make it motion insensitive, it is strain sensitive and SNR inefficient. Recently a spin-echo (SE) sequence with velocity and acceleration compensated diffusion gradients was demonstrated in rats [2] and healthy volunteers using high performance gradients [3]. This sequence is insensitive to strain and should have higher SNR than STEAM, but diffusion gradient duration and hence TE is increased while mixing time is decreased. Here we implement a velocity and acceleration compensated SE cDTI sequence on a clinical 3T scanner and show initial comparisons with STEAM.