Velocity-Encoded MRI for Assessment of Pulmonary Arterial Stiffness: Comparison of Techniques

Elsayed H. Ibrahim¹, Jean M. Shaffer¹, Richard D. White¹

Two velocity-encoding MRI methods have been proposed for assessing pulmonary artery (PA) stiffness by measuring pulse-wave-velocity (PWV): transit-time (TT) and flow-area (QA). Nevertheless, no data is available that compares the two methods, especially over wide range of PWV values, or at 3.0-Tesla. In this work, twenty-five subjects were scanned using sequences optimized for spatial and temporal resolutions. PWV was measured using the TT and QA methods. Inter-method, inter-observer and intra-observer variabilities were measured. The results showed good agreement between the methods in estimating PWV, although the QA method resulted in larger variabilities. The use of 3.0-Tesla resulted in improved image-quality.