Comparison between retrospective gating and ECG triggering in magnetic resonance velocity mapping

ECG-triggered cinematographic studies of the cardiovascular system are hampered by several technical restrictions such as the inability to image end-diastole, ghosting, varying signal intensity, and phase contributions from eddy currents. Retrospective gating may solve these problems, but involves signal manipulation such as interpolating raw data from a time window. In this study, the performance of the two gating strategies was compared in quantitative MR velocity mapping on the abdominal aorta in eight healthy volunteers and on a pulsatile flow phantom. The results were compared to a one-dimensional velocity mapping technique and Doppler ultrasound. Finally, the consequence of decreasing the time window in the raw data interpolation used for retrospective gating was also examined. With retrospective gating, a low-pass filtering was seen, causing significantly prolonged duration and decreased amplitude of flow pulses. However, by reducing the time window retrospectively gated flow measurements were in good agreement with those that are ECG triggered. When fulfilling the demand of a narrow time window for interpolation, retrospective gating offers several advantages in MR velocity mapping.