Jennifer Anne Steeden1,2, David Atkinson1,
Andrew M. Taylor2, Vivek Muthurangu2
1Medical Physics, University College
London, Gower Street, London, United Kingdom; 2Centre for
Cardiovascular MR, UCL Institute of Child Health, 30 Guilford Street, London,
United Kingdom
Real-time
phase contrast (PC) imaging has a low temporal resolution because interleaved
flow-encoded and compensated readouts must be acquired. We have developed a
hybrid real-time PC sequence that acquires real-time flow-encoded and
flow-compensated readouts in alternating blocks. The encoded data is
subsequently matched to the compensated data, allowing the temporal
resolution to be effectively doubled. This technique was demonstrated in 10
volunteers to adequately match the flow-compensated data to the flow-encoded
data. It was also shown to accurately measure stroke volumes, with a good
correlation against a reference gated sequence and an in-house real-time
interleaved flow sequence.