Time-Resolved Blood Flow Quantification with Ungated Radial Sampling

Michael C. Langham¹, Jeremy Magland¹, Felix W. Wehrli¹

Flow quantification with Cartesian scan is susceptible to ghosting flow artifact due to phase and amplitude modulation from pulsatile flow and normal dynamic heart rhythm. We propose a method where external trigger is obviated by a continuous radial scanning. The velocity-encoded radial samplings along each view angle are reordered by taking complex difference between successive projections. Results clearly demonstrate that radial flow quantification largely eliminates flow artifacts and flow profile is consistent with the standard gated PC-MRI with Cartesian sampling. Small discrepancy was observed during the diastole, where the effect of dynamic heart rhythm is more pronounced.