Summary:
UCLA researchers in the Department Radiological Sciences have developed a technique for accelerated phase-contrast MRI, reducing total image acquisition time in the collection of high-resolution data.
Background:
Phase-contrast Magnetic Resonance Imaging (PC-MRI) is an imaging technique frequently used to visualize patient anatomy for health and disease by using a strong magnetic field to visualize the spin of nuclei. PC-MRI has also been used to quantify blood flow and velocity, which is important for diagnosing and monitoring disease progression. Currently, the conventional technique allows for large data collection. However, this often results in reduced temporal resolution and prohibitively long data acquisition times. As a result, these drawbacks can affect measurement accuracy, which is essential for diagnosis. There is a need for an accelerated and temporally-accurate PC-MRI method to help improve current limitations in the state of the art.
Innovation:
UCLA researchers in the Department Radiological Sciences have developed a flow PC-MRI strategy titled HOTSPA for collection of high-resolution data with minimal measurements by balancing temporal resolution and image acquisition time. Compared to traditional PC-MRI, which requires four data acquisitions, the inventors' method requires only two. This method correspondingly improves data acquisition time by 50% and has been shown to provide high-resolution temporal data on 4D blood flow and velocity. The proposed HOTSPA technique achieves higher temporal resolution to provide more accurate peak blood flow velocity measurements compared with VPS FC/3FE scans.
Potential Applications:
- Observation of 4D blood flow using PC-MRI
- Retrograde flow
- Blood vessel translocation
- Expansion in systolic phases
- Spinal visualization of Cerebral Spinal Fluid, MR-gated intracranial CSF (liquor) dynamics
Advantages:
- Improve temporal resolution for PC-MRI
- Can be combined with existing MRI techniques such as parallel imaging, compressed sensing, and non-Cartesian acquisition trajectory to further accelerate 4D flow PC-MRI
State of Development:
Successful demonstration in image acquisition from a cohort of healthy volunteers.
Published Patents:
US 10,973,434: System and method for phase-contrast MRI with hybrid one-and two-sided flow encoding and velocity spectrum separation (HOTSPA)
US 11,813,048 System and method for phase-contrast MRI with hybrid one- and two-sided flow-encoding and velocity spectrum separation (HOTSPA)