Different Techniques for Measuring Aortic Pulse Wave Velocity Using Magnetic Resonance Imaging

ElSayed H. Ibrahim¹, Kevin R. Johnson¹, Richard D. White¹

The aorta is a basic determiner of the total systemic compliance. Reduced aortic compliance has shown to correlate with different pathologic states. Recently, noninvasive measurements have been made with MRI to calculate the blood pulse wave velocity (PWV) inside the vessel, which is inversely related to arterial stiffness. In this work, different techniques for estimating PWV (transit-time, flow-area, and cross-correlation techniques) are tested on human subjects with different cardiac conditions and compared to each other. Inter-observer, intra-observer, and scan-rescan variabilities are reported, along with the advantages and disadvantages of each technique.