Robust estimation of MRI myocardial perfusion parameters

Myocardial perfusion imaging by first-pass contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance allows to asses the viability of a tissue by the study of the contrast agent transit through the cardiac chambers and myocardium. Since visual inspection is difficult and may left aside critical temporal information, the need of automatic quantitative analysis arises. We propose two robust estimators of the parameters that quantify the perfusion according to a prior pharmacokinetic model. The estimators are based on the concentration of the contrast agent inside the tissue and the blood.