Simultaneous Quantification of Blood Velocity and Oxygenation in Femoral Artery and Vein in Response to Cuff-Induced Ischemia

Michael C. Langham¹, Jeremy Magland¹, Felix W. Wehrli¹

Quantifying reactive hyperemia in the lower extremities is a common approach for assessing vascular dysfunction associated with peripheral arterial disease (PAD). Often assessment is limited to measuring a single physiologic parameter such as velocity, flow-mediated dilatation and blood oxygenation. As a first step toward the development of an integrated MRI examination of PAD we have combined velocity quantification technique with a field mapping pulse sequence allowing simultaneous time-course mapping of blood velocity and oxygenation in femoral artery and vein during cuff-induced hyperemia. The results of blood velocity and oxygenation quantification agree with those found in the literature.