Patent ID: 6630828
Filing Date: 2003-10-07
Classification: G01R

Abstract:
A method for producing a magnetic resonance angiogram of selected vasculature in a subject using a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) system, the steps comprising:a) acquiring a mask image of the vasculature using the MRI system; b) introducing a contrast agent which flows into the selected vasculature; c) operating the MRI system to perform a pulse sequence which includes: i) producing an RF excitation pulse to excite spins in a field of view which includes the selected vasculature; ii) applying a phase encoding gradient along a first axis; iii) applying a radial gradient directed at an angle &thgr; in a plane perpendicular to the first axis; and iv) acquiring an NMR signal during the application of the radial gradient to sample an angular projection of the data in k-space having data points radially spaced at distance NR along a projection; d) repeating step c) with a set of different phase encoding gradient values for each of a plurality of different radial gradient angles &thgr; until k-space is sampled, wherein the plurality of different radial gradient angles &thgr; is less than NR &pgr;/4 in number so that a sparsely sampled k-space data set is acquired; e) reconstructing an image of the selected vasculature from the sparsely sampled k-space data set; and f) subtracting the mask image from the image reconstructed in step e).