Cine MRI to Demonstrate Normal Swallow

Abstract

The synchronized sampling method of MRI (cine MRI) was applied to demonstrate swallowing movement while a normal volunteer repeated liquid swallows synchronized with the scan sequence. The trigger pulses can also control the scan timing and was repeated regularly 128 times at 4-second interval. Since a normal swallow runs within 2 seconds, the volunteer repeated 128 swallows, regularly, so that 70 longitudinal images with 33 ms intervals each were taken. The sequence for MRI images was fast gradient echo; FOV was 256 mm, TR was 33 ms, TE was 2.2 m, Flip angle was 30°, and NEX was conducted twice at a slice thickness of 5 mm. The cine MRI of a swallow clearly demonstrated bolus transport from the mouth to the esophagus. This technique is expected to be helpful to evaluate the movement of swallowing organs.