• Alexander Rauscher, Markus Barth, Jürgen R Reichenbach, Rudolf Stollberger, and Ewald Moser.
• NMR Group, Institute of Medical Physics, University of Vienna, Austria.
• J Magn Reson Imaging. 2003 Aug 1; 18 (2): 175-80.

PurposeTo improve the diagnostic value of BOLD MR-Venography by removing artifacts related to phase wrapping, particularly in regions of large background susceptibilities at high magnetic field strengths.Materials And MethodsHigh resolution, T(2)(*)-weighted, single echo images were acquired on a 3 T system (Medspec 30/80 Avance, Bruker Medical, Ettlingen, Germany) with a three-dimensional, first order velocity compensated gradient echo sequence using a quadrature transmit/receive birdcage head coil. Data of nine healthy subjects and 19 patients were evaluated (age range: 27 to 76 years). To achieve improved MR-venograms, a fully automated region-growing phase unwrapping algorithm and subsequent high pass filtering were applied to phase images prior to the computation of minimum intensity projections.ResultsConsiderably improved visualization of venous structures in regions of large background susceptibility-induced field inhomogeneities is demonstrated in healthy subjects and patients with brain tumors.ConclusionBOLD MR venograms are improved compared to previous post-processing algorithms. It is now feasible to obtain high-resolution images also in inhomogeneous regions, which increases the clinical potential of BOLD MR-Venography.Copyright 2003 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

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