Effects of Heart Rate on Myocardial Native T1 Value Acquired by 5s(3s)3s MOLLI Sequence

Quantitative evaluation of myocardial native T1 value by measuring modified Look-Locker inversion recovery (MOLLI) method is clinically useful and is used for follow-up of various myocardial diseases. The heart rate during the scan can vary even in the same subjects. Therefore, it is important to know the effects of the heart rate on the native T1 value of the myocardium. In this study, we evaluated the effect of the heart rate on the T1 value in the 5s (3s) 3s scheme, time control data collection period of the MOLLI method, using phantom experiments and experiments of healthy volunteers. The 5s (3s) 3s scheme of the MOLLI method is considered to have little dependence on the heart rate, but the T1 value still varied up to about 7% depending on the heart rate, and was underestimated up to 8% during low heart rate using phantom experiments.