Regularization of flow streamlines in multislice phase-contrast MR imaging

Magnetic resonance angiography (MRA) has become an important tool for the clinical evaluation of vascular disease. Flow measurement with phase-contrast (PC) magnetic resonance (MR) imaging provides a powerful method for evaluation of blood velocity information inside vessels. However, image artifacts from complex flow patterns including slow flow, recirculation zone, and pulsatile flow can adversely affect accuracy of results. In this paper, we introduce a new numerical formulation for improving the accuracy of PC velocity fields and corresponding streamlines, based on a physical constraint from fluid dynamics, within a regularization framework. The formulation which makes use of a stream function, automatically enforces continuity constraint of incompressible flow and reconstructs the flow streamlines from PC images. We applied the algorithm to complex MR imaging flow velocities obtained in a flow phantom of an axisymmetric abdominal aortic aneurysm. The algorithm significantly improved streamline results especially inside the recirculation zone, where artifacts are more pronounced. A velocity reconstruction method in primitive variable form is also presented and results are compared with the stream function method. In order to validate flow characteristics derived from PC MR images, we used the FLUENT computational fluid dynamics software package, to simulate flow patterns within the same geometry as our phantom. There was a good agreement between the numerical simulations and recovered PC streamline results. Processed streamlines, in both stream function and primitive variable methods, were more realistic and provided more precise flow patterns than unprocessed PC data. Additionally, the feasibility of the method was demonstrated in the aorta of a normal volunteer.