Matthew J. Middione1, 2, Daniel B. Ennis1, 2
1Department of Radiological Sciences, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, United States; 2Biomedical Physics Interdepartmental Program, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, United States
Phase contrast MRI (PC-MRI) is subject to numerous sources of error including eddy currents, which decreases both quantitative accuracy and clinical confidence in the reported measures. A recently proposed PC-MRI protocol minimizes flow measurement errors arising from chemical shift effects. Herein we demonstrate that this same protocol reduces eddy current-induced velocity offsets to clinically acceptable levels (<0.6cm/s) for the ascending aorta and right and left pulmonary arteries as demonstrated in N=10 healthy subjects. Reductions for the pulmonary artery are also seen. The proposed PC-MRI protocol improves the accuracy and robustness of PC-MRI by reducing two significant sources of error.