Dependence of image quality of LGE-MRI of the left atrium on the acceptance rate of respiratory navigator and acquisition time

Background Atrial fibrillation (AF) is a common sustained cardiac arrhythmia associated with increased risks of heart failure and stroke. Late gadolinium enhanced MRI (LGE-MRI) is being routinely used to assess and manage the treatment of AF. To acquire LGE images of thin left atrial (LA) wall high-resolution 3D inversion recovery prepared GRE pulse sequence with cardiac gating and respiratory navigation should be used. This makes the image quality dependent on the patient’s heart rate and respiration pattern. In this work, we study the effect of the patient respiration on image quality of LGE-MRI of LA.