The Cardiac Suite covers the complete application range from morphology, ventricular and valvular functions to dynamic signal, late enhancement, coronary imaging and angiography.

This package includes, for example:

Cardiac view creation

• Fast acquisition of the basic cardiac views for further examination planning
• Cardiac scouting provides users with a step-by-step procedure for the visualisation and planning of typical cardiac views, e.g. based on TrueFISP or dark blood TurboFLASH: Short-axis, 4-Chamber and 2-Chamber views

Morphology - Heart and Vessel structure and valve function

• Various breath-hold techniques for strong contrast between the blood and vascular structures (dark-blood TSE and HASTE imaging are available for the structural evaluation of the cardio-thoracic anatomy, including vessels or heart valves). Standard cine techniques (FLASH) can also be used to visualize valvular function
• Optimized workflow with Drag & Drop recall (Phoenix), Scan button and Copy Position

Ventricular function and wall motion

Tools for rapid evaluation of left or right ventricular function:

• Acquisition of a stack of short-axis slices (standard segmented FLASH, or advanced segmented TrueFISP)
• Acquisition adjustment of the acquisition window of the current heart rate
• Use of the Inline ECG for the graphical ECG triggering setup
• Prospective gating with cine sequences (TrueFISP, FLASH)
• Protocols for coverage of the whole heart
• iPAT integration for the highest temporal/spatial resolution

Tissue characterization

Protocols for high contrast and high spatial resolution tissue characterization (first pass and delayed enhancement imaging):

• Ultra-fast protocols for dynamic imaging, e.g. for 8 arbitrarily oriented slices per heart beat. These protocols provide multi-slice information for the assessment of coronary heart disease (Turbo FLASH)
• Segmented IR TrueFISP/FLASH for the assessment of myocardial viability in 2D and in 3D by delayed enhancement
• TI Scout for optimization of contrast between infarction and normal myocardium
• Protocols for paediatric examinations, stress imaging and plaque characterisation

Coronary Imaging

• Coronary imaging based on a breath-hold 3D FLASH sequence or motion correction with 1D PACE