Patent ID: 7343193

Claim:
A method for producing a magnetic resonance image of a patient using a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) system, the steps comprising: a) injecting the patient with a contrast agent which flows into a region of interest in the patient; b) acquiring NMR k-space data for a series of NMR time course images during a time resolved phase of an examination, during which the contrast agent makes a first passage through the patient's arteries in the region of interest; c) reconstruct a series of corresponding low resolution time course images using a central portion of the NMR k-space data acquired in step b); d) producing an orthogonality image by measuring the degree to which voxel vectors formed from data in corresponding voxels in the series of low resolution time course images are orthogonal to a model time course voxel vector; e) producing a mask image by determining which voxels in the orthogonality image exceed a threshold; f) producing a series of low resolution vascular images by multiplying the low resolution time course images by the mask; g) transforming the series of low resolution vascular images to produce a corresponding series of filtered k-space center data sets; h) combining a peripheral portion of the NMR k-space data acquired in step b) with the corresponding series of filtered k-space center data sets to form a series of filtered k-space data sets; and i) reconstructing an image by transforming a filtered k-space data set.