Grzegorz Bauman1, Michael Puderbach2, Michael Deimling3, Vladimir Jellus3, Christophe Chefd'hotel4, Hans-Ulrich Kauczor5, Lothar Schad6
1Medical Physics in Radiology, German Cancer Research Center, Heidelberg, Germany; 2Department of Radiology, German Cancer Research Center, Heidelberg, Germany; 3Siemens Healthcare, Erlangen, Germany; 4Siemens Corporate Research, Princeton, NJ, USA; 5Department of Diagnostic Radiology, University Hospital Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany; 6Computer Clinical Assisted Medicine, University of Heidelberg, Mannheim, Germany
We showed the feasibility and reproducibility of a novel approach for non-contrast enhanced perfusion and ventilation assessment in proton MRI. The Fourier Decomposition method was implemented on a 1.5T clinical MR scanner and applied in a healthy volunteer study. A fast steady-state free precession (SSFP) pulse sequence was used to produce 2D time-resolved data stacks. Non-rigid image registration and spectral analysis of the data allowed separating the signal from the lung parenchyma and pulsative blood to generate ventilation and perfusion maps. The presented method requires only minimal patient compliance and is not dependent on triggering techniques.