Michael C. LANGHAM1, Erin K. Englund1, Cheng Li2, Thomas F. Floyd3, Emile R. Mohler III4, Felix W. Wehrli1
1Radiology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, United States; 2Radiology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA - Pennsylvania, United States; 3Anesthesiology, SUNY Stondy Brook, Stony Brook, NY, United States; 4Vascular Medicine Section, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Microvascular dysfunction, associated with peripheral arterial disease, has previously been assessed by quantifying post-ischemic perfusion in calf muscle with continuous arterial spin labeling (CASL). We demonstrate that the saturation inversion-recovery (SATIR) PASL outweighs the SNR gain of CASL significantly by reducing the confounding BOLD effect in temporally resolved quantification of post-ischemic muscle perfusion. The two main features of SATIR PASL that reduce the imbalance in the tissue magnetization caused by the BOLD effect between successive images are higher temporal resolution and the slice-selective saturation pulse played out at the end of each pulse sequence cycle.