Bolus MR/CT Flashcards
Define perfusion
The volume of blood delivered to the capillary bed of a block of tissue in a given period of time
What is the units for perfusion?
ml of blood per 100g of tissue per minute (or just ml/100g/min)
What does perfusion equal to?
Cerebral blood flow
How is perfusion distinct from bulk flow of blood?
Through arteries/veins
What is perfusion?
Flow at the capillary level, where exchange of nutrients between the blood and tissue occurs
Why measure perfusion?
Changes in blood supply are intimately linked with many disease processes?
- Stroke (loss of blood supply to regions of the brain)
- Tumours (angiogenesis)
- Vascular dementias
Fmri
- Increased perfusion reflects changes in neuronal activity
Why use MRI to measure perfusion?
- Non-invasive
- Good spatial resolution
- Can be used in conjuction with other MR techniques such as structural imaging, diffusion -weighted imaging, MT, 1H, 31P spectroscopy
- Wide availability of MR scanners
What is angiogenesis?
growth of new blood vessels, creation of more vessels because tumour is energy hungry
What can perfusion be used to look at?
functional activation because when neurons become active due to a functional or cognitive task, their energy demands go up and in order to satisfy increased energy demands, perfusion/blood flow also increases
- Increased perfusion reflects changes in neuronal activity
MR methods for perfusion imaging: exogenous contrast agents
Known as Dynamic Susceptibility Contrast (DSC) or Bolus Tracking MRI
Based on the injection of a bolus of paramagnetic tracer which affects the signal in an MR image as it passes through the tissue
Requires fast imaging to track the passage of the bolus accurately
Typical tracers: gadolinium (Gd), dysprosium (Dy)
How do you acquire T2/T2* images?
- As gadolinium passes through the vasculature, it stays within the blood vessels then causes a decrease in T2/T2*
- If we are acquiring a series of images with T2/T2* weighting – when the gadolinium is present – there is a large drop in signal intensity – the vasculature is full of gadolinium – reduces T2/T2* - much reduced signal intensity
What is the consequence of T2/T2*?
Signal loss in T2/T2* - weighted images
when agents stays intravascular
What is the mechanism for signal loss in DSC-MRI?
• When gadolinium is present within bloodstream and because gadolinium is paramagnetic – the gadolinium aligns with the magnetic field and it makes the magnetic field inside the blood vessels much higher than the field outside
• There is a high field in the blood vessels and there is much lower field outside – get a gradient effect
- The field going from high to low but has to do it in a continuous way, so you get a range of field surrounding the blood vessels – range of different resonance frequencies because Larmor frequency is directly proportional to local magnetic field
- Range of frequencies means that things become out of sync quickly
- Transverse signal decays much more quickly
What is the passage of a DSC bolus?
- Inject a bolus as quickly as possible (<10s)
- Typical DSC bolus: 0.1 –> 0.3 mmol/kg body weight
- Results in transient decrease in MR signal as bolus passes through the image voxxels
- In order to define the passage of the bolus accuratelt, need to aqcuire an image every few seconds
- Imaging method of choice: PI
- EPI can acquire ~10 slices per second, and so a time resolution of 1-2s allows coverage of a large volume of the brain
What is the summary parameters for the information available from DSC?
- BAT = Bolus Arrival Time
- FWHM = Full Width Half Max
- PA = Peak Area
- TTP = Time To Peak
- MP = Maximum Peak