Investigative radiology
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Investigative radiology · Sep 2003
Comparative StudyAutomatic model-based contour detection and blood flow quantification in small vessels with velocity encoded magnetic resonance imaging.
The quantitative assessment of blood flow in peripheral vessels from phase-contrast magnetic resonance imaging studies requires the accurate delineation of vessel contours in cross-sectional magnetic resonance images. The conventional manual segmentation approach is tedious, time-consuming, and leads to significant inter- and intraobserver variabilities. The aim of this study was to verify whether automatic model-based segmentation decreases these problems by fitting a model to the actual blood velocity profile. ⋯ Blood flow in magnetic resonance images of small vessels can be assessed accurately, rapidly, and fully automatically using model-based postprocessing by fitting a first approximation of the velocity profile to the actual flow data.