Better and faster velocity pulsatility assessment in cerebral white matter perforating arteries with 7T quantitative flow MRI through improved slice profile, acquisition scheme, and postprocessing

PURPOSE: A previously published cardiac-gated 2D Qflow protocol at 7 T in cerebral perforating arteries was optimized to reduce velocity underestimation and improve temporal resolution. METHODS: First, the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) gain of the velocity measurement (SNRv ) was tested for two signal averages versus one. Second, the decrease in velocity underestimation with a tilted optimized nonsaturating excitation (TONE) pulse was tested. Third, the decrease in pulsatility index (PI) underestimation through improved temporal resolution was tested. Test-retest agreement was measured for the resulting acquisition in older volunteers (mean age 63 years), and the results were compared with the other volunteers (mean age 26 years). RESULTS: Using two signal averages increased SNRv by only 12% (P = 0.04), probably due to motion of the subvoxel-size arteries. The TONE decreased velocity underestimation, thereby increasing the mean velocity from 0.52 to 0.67 cm/s (P < 0.001). The PI increased substantially with increasing temporal resolution. The test-retest agreement showed good coefficients of repeatability of 0.18 cm/s for velocity and 0.14 for PI. The measured velocity was lower in the older group: 0.42 versus 0.51 cm/s (P = 0.05). CONCLUSIONS: The optimized sequence yields better velocity and PI estimates in small vessels, has twice as good test-retest agreement, and has a suitable scan time for use in patients. Magn Reson Med, 2017. © 2017 The Authors Magnetic Resonance in Medicine published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is not used for commercial purposes