MRI Turbulence Quantification

Petter Dyverfeldt¹, Roland Grdhagen¹, Andreas Sigfridsson¹, Matts Karlsson¹, Tino Ebbers¹

Turbulent flow may contribute to the progression and hemodynamic consequences several cardiovascular diseases. MR turbulence measurements were recently successfully applied in-vivo and an in-vitro study has demonstrated good agreement between turbulence quantities obtained by MRI and particle image velocimetry. In this study our objective was to investigate potential pitfalls and sources of error in MR turbulence measurements. The results showed that the sensitivity of MRI turbulence measurements to non-turbulent phenomena is negligible and that robust and accurate estimates of turbulence intensity can be obtained from a standard phase-contrast MRI measurement. These findings may enhance the applicability of MR turbulence measurements.