Arterial MR imaging phase-contrast flow measurement: improvements with varying velocity sensitivity during cardiac cycle

To reduce noise in velocity images of magnetic resonance (MR) phase-contrast measurements, the authors implemented and evaluated a pulse sequence that enables automatic optimization of the velocity-encoding parameter V(enc) for individual heart phases in pulsatile flow on the basis of a rapid prescan. This sequence was prospectively evaluated by comparing velocity-to-noise ratios with those from a standard MR flow scan obtained in the carotid artery in eight volunteers. This sequence was shown to improve velocity-to-noise ratios by a factor of 2.0-6.0 in all but the systolic heart phase and was determined to be an effective technique for reducing noise in phase-contrast velocity measurements.