Spatio-temporal constrained reconstruction of sparse dynamic contrast enhanced radial MRI data

Dynamic Contrast Enhanced (DCE) MRI is a useful technique to probe physiology in an organ or area of interest over time. In this process a contrast agent is injected into the body and images are acquired over time to track the uptake and washout patterns of an area of interest. It takes a relatively long time to acquire full data in k-space for each time frame without tradeoffs in spatial and temporal resolution. We propose a Spatio-Temporal Constrained Reconstruction (STCR) technique that uses spatial and temporal constraints to reconstruct high quality images from undersampled dynamic k-space data. The proposed method was tested on angularly undersampled (sparse) radial dynamic contrast enhanced myocardial perfusion data and compared to standard inverse Fourier reconstructions from full data. The method reconstructed images faithfully from as little as 15% of full data and contrast to noise ratio was improved by 30%. Image quality was preserved even in the presence of some respiratory motion.