Computer-assisted evaluation of aortic stiffness using data acquired via magnetic resonance
Aortic stiffness is frequently assessed through pulse wave velocity (PWV) measurements. Based on data acquired by magnetic resonance (MR) using a one-dimensional time-of-flight technique, a new computational tool has been developed to rapidly construct flow velocity images and automatically calculate PWV. Comparison between PWV results obtained from this and a manual analysis demonstrates good agreement (correlation coefficient of 0.9951), while the new method improves the time efficiency by more than 20 times. The new method can also significantly improve flow signal quality and yield more credible results when strong interfering background signals are present.
pulse wave velocity aorta arterial compliance computational method magnetic resonance imaging