Abstract #2869

Enhancement of Venous Vasculature in the Brain with Multi-Scale Filtering

Zhaoyang Jin^1,2, Ling Xia², Yiping Peter Du³

¹Institute of Information and Control, Hangzhou Dianzi University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China; ²Biomedical Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China; ³Psychiatry,Radiology, University of Colorado Denver School of Medicine, Denver, CO, USA

In susceptibility weighted imaging, off-resonance artifacts can appear in regions with severe field inhomogeneity. The use of minimum-intensity projection can also cause signal loss in the peripheral regions of the brain. In this study, we present a multi-scale filter to enhance venous vasculature using magnitude images. Venography with positive venous contrast can be obtained. The maximum-intensity projection display of the filtered venography does not suffer from signal loss. Excellent venous contrast was obtained with a relatively short TE acquisition (TE=16.3ms) at 3T, making it feasible to reduce the scan time while preserving good visibility of small veins.