Abstract #1205

The Effects of Chemically Shifted Perivascular Fat in Quantitative Phase Contrast MRI

Matthew J. Middione^1,2, Abbas N. Moghadam^1,3, Yutaka Natsuaki⁴, Daniel B. Ennis^1,5

¹Department of Radiological Sciences, Diagnostic Cardiovascular Imaging Section, University of California,, Los Angeles, CA, United States; ²Biomedical Physics Interdepartmental Program, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, United States; ³Department of Biomedical Engineering, Amirkabir University of Technology (Tehran Polytechnic),, Tehran, Iran; ⁴Siemens Medical Solutions, Malvern, PA, United States; ⁵Biomedical Physics Interdepartmental Program, University of California,, Los Angeles, CA, United States

Chemical shift artifacts can corrupt blood flow quantification in Phase Contrast MRI (PC-MRI). Specifically, perivascular fat can chemically shift across the vessel wall and into the lumen, thereby leading to over or underestimation of blood velocity within a vessel, depending on the imaging protocol. The degree to which chemical shift disrupts blood flow measurements depends on the readout bandwidth and the echo time. We propose that using a higher readout bandwidth reduces chemical shift artifacts in PC-MRI and concomitantly improves the accuracy of quantitative blood flow measurements.