Computer-Aided Method for Automated Selection of Optimal Imaging Plane for Measurement of Cerebral Volumetric Blood Flow Rate by MRI

Pang-Yu Teng¹, Noam Alperin¹

Quantification of volumetric blood flow by PCMRI is becoming more widely used for noninvasive measurement of total cerebral blood flow and intracranial pressure. Current computer guided methods utilize separate scans for each of the four blood vessels leading blood to the brain to obtain a measurement in a plane that is perpendicular to the flow direction. In order to reduce scan time and increase measurement reliability, it is desirable to identify an imaging plane that simultaneously acquires the blood flows in the 4 vessels most perpendicularly. Therefore, we propose an automated method to identify this imaging plane and compare the computer selected planes with those selected by a radiologist. The result shows that computer-aided method (CAM) consistently outperforms the radiologist.