Patent Document ID: 20140100443
Application ID: 13647119
Patent Status: 0

Claim One:
1. A method for acquiring medical images of a portion of a vascular structure of a subject using a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) system, the method comprising the steps of: a) determining a desired number of magnetization suppressing preparations to be applied to the subject within one cardiac cycle of the subject to sustain a suppression of signal from blood flow through at least a region of interest; b) monitoring a cardiac cycle of the subject to identify a predetermined point in the cardiac cycle and, upon identifying the predetermined point in the cardiac cycle, performing the steps of: i) performing at least one of the desired number of magnetization suppressing preparations to suppress signal from blood flow through at least the region of interest; ii) performing at least one of a fat saturation radio-frequency (RF) pulse and water excitation RF pulse to control signal from fat within the region of interest relative to signal from non-fat; iii) acquiring a first set of imaging data from the region of interest; iv) repeating at least step i) and step iii) to acquire at least a second set of imaging data from the region of interest; c) repeating step b) a predetermined number of times over a series of cardiac cycles to acquire respective sets of medical imaging data of the region of interest; and d) reconstructing the first set of imaging data and the second set of imaging data into a time-resolved series of images.