hide
Free keywords:
-
Abstract:
Introduction: Assessment of regional blood flow in the lungs is important for clinical diagnosis of pulmonary diseases. Arterial spin labeling (ASL) techniques have been used for non-invasive quanti- taive evaluation of perfusion in the lung. 1,2 We recently demonstrated that ECG triggered pseudo-continuous arterial spin labeling (PCASL) with bSSFP readout provides high quality perfusion images of the lungs in patients under free breathing condition. 3 Nonetheless, although perfusion deficits caused by acute pulmonary embolism can be detected reliably, the perfusion signal of the parenchyma is dependent on the individual cardiac cycle and a further increase of the perfusion signal is helpful for the use in clinical routine. Here, we present the first results of a new PCASL approach using multiple ECG-triggered labeling in several preceding cardiac cycles to mea- sure the temporal and spatial characteristics of pulmonary blood flow.
