Navigator artifact reduction in three-dimensional late gadolinium enhancement imaging of the atria

Purpose Navigator‐gated three‐dimensional (3D) late gadolinium enhancement (LGE) imaging demonstrates scarring following ablation of atrial fibrillation. An artifact originating from the slice‐selective navigator‐restore pulse is frequently present in the right pulmonary veins (PVs), obscuring the walls and making quantification of enhancement difficult. We describe a simple sequence modification to greatly reduce or remove this artifact. Methods A navigator‐gated inversion‐prepared gradient echo sequence was modified so that the slice‐selective navigator‐restore pulse was delayed in time from the nonselective preparation (NAV‐restore‐delayed). Both NAV‐restore‐delayed and conventional 3D LGE acquisitions were performed in 11 patients and the results compared. Results One patient was excluded due to severe respiratory motion artifact in both NAV‐restore‐delayed and conventional acquisitions. Moderate to severe artifact was present in 9 of the remaining 10 patients using the conventional sequence and was considerably reduced when using the NAV‐restore‐delayed sequence (ostial PV to blood pool ratio, 1.7 ± 0.5 versus 1.1 ± 0.2, respectively [P