Improved estimation of velocity and flow rate using regularized three-point phase-contrast velocimetry.

We improved the three-point phase-contrast method by regularization of MR velocity data after acquisition of a low velocity-to-noise ratio (VNR) velocity image and a high VNR aliased velocity image. The phase unwrapping algorithm is based on the assumed correlation of the velocity of adjacent flow voxels on the low VNR and the unaliased high VNR images. We used Fourier encoding with eight velocity-encoding gradient steps to obtain reference velocity images of the aorta from five subjects (274 images) and compared them with the phase-contrast and three-point phase-contrast images with and without regularization. The VNR of the regularized velocity image was improved by 9.1 dB and the VNR of the three-point phase-contrast velocity image was improved by 0.7 dB with respect to the low first moment velocity image. Corresponding improvements of 9 dB and 3.7 dB were obtained for the estimations of instantaneous flow rate. Magn Reson Med 44:122-128, 2000. Copyright 2000 Wiley-Liss, Inc.