Patent ID: 7515742

Claim:
A method, comprising: obtaining PCMR (phase contrast magnetic resonance) images at different times during a single cardiac cycle, wherein the PCMR images contain one or more blood vessels of interest and are generated as a series of pairs of PCMR images with each member of a pair being generated using a bipolar velocity gradient of opposite polarity to the other member of the pair; generating magnitude images from the PCMR images; estimating a magnitude noise level of the magnitude images by computing the standard deviation of a pixel intensity in one or more of the magnitude images; segmenting the magnitude images in accordance with pixel magnitude intensity into background regions and into high SNR (signal-to-noise ratio) regions having pixel magnitude intensities above a specified threshold; generating phase difference images from the series of pairs of PCMR images; segmenting the phase difference images into one or more candidate RST's (region of stationary tissue), wherein a candidate RST is selected such that the pixel locations of the candidate RST correspond to the pixel locations of a high SNR region of the magnitude images and such that no pixel locations of the candidate RST are within blood vessels; computing an average phase difference of the candidate RST by spatially averaging phase difference intensities of the pixels making up the candidate RST; and, employing the average phase difference to correct a non-zero mean phase shift in the phase difference images due to eddy current effects.