Coronary flow quantification by Fourier velocity encoded MRI

Recently, the feasibility of measuring coronary blood flow using fast magnetic resonance (MR) techniques was reported. Thus, MR holds potential to non-invasively assess significance of coronary stenosis. However, the accurate determination of flow and vessel area still remains challenging. High spatial and temporal resolution is required to assess reliable flow profiles within the coronary arteries. For this purpose, Fourier velocity encoding (FVE) was implemented with a small number of encoding steps. Simulations and in-vitro experiments have been performed to demonstrate the benefit of FVE for flow quantification. Further, initial volunteer measurements have shown its potential for invivo application.