Myocardial T1 mapping using SMART1Map: initial in vivo experience

Background Recently a single-point, saturation-recovery myocardial T1 mapping sequence (SMART1Map = Saturation Method using Adaptive Recovery Times for cardiac T1 Mapping) was presented [1]. Compared to common methods like MOLLI, SMART1Map measures true T1 instead of apparent T1 relaxation, is more time efficient and can track exact TI times instead of estimated ones based on the heart rate during prescription. In this work we compare SMART1Map to MOLLI in an initial cohort of volunteers.