A METHOD AND AN APPARATUS FOR DETERMINING BODY VESSEL CHARACTERISTICS USING PC-MRI IMAGING

摘要

A method for determining body vessel characteristics from PC-MRI imaging data of a PC- MRI image sequence comprising said body vessel, wherein the PC-MRI imaging data is arranged to digitally represent a volume of space as a plurality of voxels, each voxel being assigned a complex value comprising a signal magnitude registered for a portion of the volume of space corresponding to said voxel and a signal phase registered for said portion of the volume of space corresponding to said voxel, and wherein each voxel is associated with a pixel in the PC-MRI images of the PC-MRI image sequence. The method is characterised in that it comprises the steps of: determining complex summation values based on the signal magnitude and signal phase of the voxels associated with the pixels in a region of interest comprising the body vessel in the PC-MRI images of the PC-MRI image sequence; and determining at least one body vessel characteristic based on the determined complex summation values. The invention further relates to an apparatus for determining body vessel characteristics in PC-MRI imaging and a computer program product for use in such an apparatus.