To achieve accurate measurements of blood flow, conventional 2D phase-contrast (PC) MR techniques require that the vessel of interest be perpendicular to the excitation plane. In clinical practice, plane orientation can be difficult and time consuming, especially for convoluted vessels. In addition, scan time is increased since flow in multiple blood vessels is usually of interest. We developed an alternative technique to conventional 2D PC MR that overcomes these problems. Instead of acquiring a series of conventional 2D images, we perform a single high-resolution 3D acquisition. We then process this data set retrospectively to produce accurate flow measurements for vessels in any orientation.
NIH ExPorter
NIH ExPorter