A medical image processing apparatus comprises processing circuitry configured to: acquire at least one first data set representative of measurements using a medical scanner and including a representation of at least one blood vessel; acquire a plurality of second data sets representative of measurements obtained using the medical scanner and including a representation of said at least one blood vessel, each of the plurality of second data sets representing measurements obtained for a respective different one of a plurality of cardiac phases; and process the plurality of second data sets using a motion estimation procedure to correct for motion between the cardiac phases and, using the at least one first data set, to at least partially remove at least one feature associated with the blood vessel.

In a method and magnetic resonance (MR) apparatus for monitoring an interventional procedure with an intervention tool in a vessel of an examination subject, the intervention tool is moved in an insertion direction in the vessel and the position of a front end of the intervention tool in the insertion direction is determined. A first volume segment is determined dependent on the position and the flow direction of a fluid within the vessel. An RF saturation pulse is radiated into the first volume segment that saturates nuclear spins in the fluid within the first volume segment. MR data are acquired in a second volume segment, which contains the front end of the intervention tool and a region in front of the intervention tool in the insertion direction. An MR image is generated from the acquired MR data.

The present invention relates to a method for acquiring data for acquiring an arteriogram and a venogram of magnetic resonance imaging, the method: using one or more echo; and simultaneously acquiring, through one-time photography, an arteriogram and a venogram, which are optimized according to the number of slabs or improving connectivity of a slab boundary part of the arteriogram.

Provided is a method of acquiring magnetic resonance (MR) image with respect to an object including a blood vessel by using a three-dimensional (3D) gradient echo sequence, the method including: acquiring k space data with respect to the object based on the 3D gradient echo sequence; and acquiring the MR image with respect to the object based on the acquired k space data, wherein the acquiring of the k space data includes acquiring the k space data based on the 3D gradient echo sequence having a TR (repetition time) that varies according to a value of at least one of a first axis or a second axis of the k space of the k space data.

A method for producing an image representative of the vasculature of a subject using a MRI system includes the acquisition of a signal indicative of a subject' cardiac phase. During each heartbeat of the subject, image slices of a volume covering a region of interest (ROI) within the subject are acquired by applying a volume-selective venous suppression pulse to suppress (a) venous signal for an upper slice in the ROI; (b) venous signal for slices that are upstream for venous flow in the ROI; and (c) background signal from the upstream slices. Next, a slice-selective background suppression pulse is applied to suppress background signal of the upper slice. Following a quiescent time interval, a spectrally selective fat suppression pulse is applied to the entire volume to attenuate signal from background fat signal. Then, a simultaneous multi-slice acquisition of the upper slice and the upstream slices is performed.

A system and method includes reception of a first image of a blood vessel, reception of a second image of the blood vessel, determination of a first size of a region of the blood vessel based on the first image, determination of a second size of the region of the blood vessel based on the second image, and calculation of a parameter of the blood vessel based on the first size and the second size.

A system and method for reconstructing a series of images of a subject includes acquiring medical image data from the subject with a medical imaging system and reconstructing a series of images of the subject from the acquired medical image data set. The reconstructing includes enforcing general adherence to a non-patient-specific signal model that describes a dependency of image intensity values on at least one variable that is associated with a physical or physiological property by constraining reconstruction of individual images in the series of images using the non-patient-specific model. The reconstructing also includes preserving information in the series of images that deviate from the non-patient-specific model by controlling a requirement of consistency with the non-patient-specific model.

A magnetic resonance imaging system and method are provided for improved phase-sensitive magnetic resonance imaging of tissues affected by cardiovascular pulsatile motion. A magnetically-prepared image dataset and corresponding reference image dataset (for phase sensitivity) are obtained within the duration of a single cardiac cycle. The paired datasets can be single-shot or segmented datasets and a navigator sequence can optionally be provided with each paired dataset. The system and method take advantage of the shape symmetry of the cardiac cycle to acquire the paired dataset in a shorter time interval, thereby reducing misregistration artifacts. The magnetic preparation can include inversion recovery pulses, FIDDLE sequences, other magnetic preparation sequences, or combinations thereof. The reference dataset can be acquired at a lower resolution than the corresponding magnetically-prepared dataset without compromising image quality.

A computer-implemented method of visualizing blood flow through a patient using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) includes receiving an image of the portal venous system of the patient's liver at a full field of view. A reduced field of view is defined which encompasses the portal venous system of the patient's liver and excludes extraneous anatomy in the full field of view. A navigator area is defined in the full field of view and outside of the reduced field of view. Transmit channels are used to selectively excite the reduced field of view and the navigator area throughout a cardiac cycle of the patient. Measurement data is acquired in response to the selective excitation. The acquired data is used to generate time-resolved 3D datasets. Additionally, a 3D visualization of blood flow though the portal venous system is generated based on the time-resolved 3D datasets.

An automatic clipping technique capable of satisfactorily extracting blood vessels to be extracted is provided. A specific tissue extraction mask image which is created by extracting a specific tissue (for example, a brain) from a three-dimensional image acquired by magnetic resonance angiography and a blood vessel extraction mask image which is created by extracting a blood vessel from an area (a blood vessel search area) which is determined using a preset landmark position and the specific tissue extraction mask image are integrated to create an integrated mask. By applying the integrated mask to the three-dimensional image, a blood vessel is clipped from the three-dimensional image.