Heiko
Schmiedeskamp1, Matus Straka1, Diane Jenuleson2,
Greg Zaharchuk1, Roland Bammer1
1Lucas Center, Department of Radiology,
Stanford University, Stanford, CA, United States; 2Stanford University
Medical Center, Stanford, CA, United States
Vessel
size imaging is a relatively new technique that relates contrast
agent-induced changes of transverse relaxation rates, R2 and R2*, to each
other to obtain an index that provides information about the size of vessels
within a voxel of interrogation. Ideally, such measurements require the
simultaneous acquisition of multiple gradient-echo (GE) and a spin-echo (SE)
signals. However, limiting the acquisition to one GE and SE induces
T1-related errors in the vessel size estimation. This problem can be solved
by acquiring multiple GE/SE-signals, from which one can derive T1-independent
estimates of R2 and R2* from before and during contrast-agent passage.