REDUCTION OF ARTIFACTS FROM BREATHING AND PERISTALSIS IN PHASE-CONTRAST MRA OF THE CHEST AND ABDOMEN

Strategies for the acquisition of temporally resolved phase-contrast angiography are described and demonstrated. Projections are acquired through the entire thickness of the subject permitting excitation geometries to be independent of image orientation. Minimal delays are used between the acquisition of oppositely flow-encoded data resulting in fewer artifacts from movement of nominally stationary tissue. A protocol that suppresses artifacts from both peristalsis and breathing is presented for the aortic arch and iliac arteries.