Myocardial perfusion is an important marker of cardiovascular health that is routinely evaluated clinically. Perfusion is measured most often using single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) imaging, but magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has many advantages over SPECT. Measuring perfusion quantitatively in ml/min/g would theoretically allow for improved characterization of cardiac disease, especially in cases where there is a global perfusion deficit or where perfusion is tracked longitudinally over time. However, there are currently no widely available ways of measuring myocardial perfusion quantitatively in ml/min/g using MRI. Some methods, such as dual bolus and dual echo imaging, have been proposed but none have gained widespread adoption. Described here is a new method for improving the accuracy and ease of use of these existing techniques. Additionally, the measurement of myocardial blood volume is described, which is a separate biomarker that is related to myocardial perfusion and whose measurement is a critical first step in implementing a new method for measuring myocardial perfusion.

Last modified

• 02/13/2018

Creator

• Neil Chatterjee

DOI

• https://doi.org/10.21985/N20H3T

Subject

• Biomedical Engineering

Keyword

• perfusion
• MRI

Date created

• 2016-01-01

Resource type

• Dissertation

Rights statement

• In Copyright