Abstract #0727

Absolute Quantification of Pulmonary Pressure Waveforms with MRI in Pulmonary Hypertension Patients

Octavia Biris^1,2, Sanjiv Shah^3,4, Jeremy Collins¹, Amir Davarpanah¹, James Carr^1,3, Timothy J. Carroll^1,2

¹Radiology, Northwestern University, Chicago, IL, USA; ²Biomedical Engineering, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA; ³Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University, Chicago, IL, USA; ⁴Cardiology, Northwestern University, Chicago, IL, USA

Pulmonary arterial hypertension, a disease of proliferation of the pulmonary arteries, is currently diagnosed by right heart catheterization. We propose to develop a non-invasive alternative to catheterization, by which pulmonary artery pressure is calculated according to the Windkessel model by direct convolution of the pulmonary artery flow wave with an exponential function of time and vessel parameters compliance and vascular resistance. While flow in the pulmonary artery branches can be measured directly by MRI, compliance must be estimated from measurements of flow and vessel cross-section throughout the cardiac cycle. Pulmonary vascular resistance is estimated from measures of right ventricular function.