Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jun 21, 2026
In vitro Assessment of Aortic Regurgitation Using Four-Dimensional Flow Magnetic Resonance Imaging
Published on: February 25, 2022
Accelerated time-resolved three-dimensional MR velocity mapping of blood flow patterns in the aorta using SENSE and
Andreas Stadlbauer1, Wilma van der Riet, Gerard Crelier
1MR Physics Group, Department of Radiology, Landesklinikum St. Poelten, Propst Fuehrer Strasse 4, 3100 St. Poelten, Austria. andi@nmr.at
Purpose:
To assess the feasibility and potential limitations of the acceleration techniques SENSE and k-t BLAST for time-resolved three-dimensional (3D) velocity mapping of aortic blood flow. Furthermore, to quantify differences in peak velocity versus heart phase curves.
Materials And Methods:
Time-resolved 3D blood flow patterns were investigated in eleven volunteers and two patients suffering from aortic diseases with accelerated PC-MR sequences either in combination with SENSE (R=2) or k-t BLAST (6-fold). Both sequences showed similar data acquisition times and hence acceleration efficiency. Flow-field streamlines were calculated and visualized using the GTFlow software tool in order to reconstruct 3D aortic blood flow patterns. Differences between the peak velocities from single-slice PC-MRI experiments using SENSE 2 and k-t BLAST 6 were calculated for the whole cardiac cycle and averaged for all volunteers.
Results:
Reconstruction of 3D flow patterns in volunteers revealed attenuations in blood flow dynamics for k-t BLAST 6 compared to SENSE 2 in terms of 3D streamlines showing fewer and less distinct vortices and reduction in peak velocity, which is caused by temporal blurring. Solely by time-resolved 3D MR velocity mapping in combination with SENSE detected pathologic blood flow patterns in patients with aortic diseases. For volunteers, we found a broadening and flattering of the peak velocity versus heart phase diagram between the two acceleration techniques, which is an evidence for the temporal blurring of the k-t BLAST approach.
Conclusion:
We demonstrated the feasibility of SENSE and detected potential limitations of k-t BLAST when used for time-resolved 3D velocity mapping. The effects of higher k-t BLAST acceleration factors have to be considered for application in 3D velocity mapping.
