Abstract #3019

Peng H, Huang T, Tseng W, Chung H

Flow measurements by phase-contrast imaging generally requires an ECG signal to synchronize the acquisition of imaging data with pulsatile arterial flow. Recently, self-gated and flow-gated methods via radial scanning are reported for acquiring phase-contrast images on major cardiac vessels without usage of ECG. For carotid arteries with much weaker flow than larger vessels, flow gating without ECG becomes rather challenging. In this study, we accomplished such an aim by employing a correlation method on complex difference images acquired with radial scanning. Quantitative comparison with conventional ECG-gated imaging showed that the proposed method is highly feasible.