Flow-induced disturbances in balanced steady-state free precession images: means to reduce or exploit them.

In this work computer simulations and phantom measurements are presented that show the effect of flow on in-plane balanced steady-state free precession images. The images were studied for various flow velocities, excitation regions, relaxation times, RF-pulse angles, and off-resonance frequencies. The work shows that flow-induced disturbances are present in the images, but can be reduced by the application of inhomogeneous excitation regions. Also, a velocity quantification method that utilizes the disturbances was developed and proved to quantify flow velocities accurately. The work concluded that the flow-induced disturbances can be reduced to improve image quality, but can also be exploited to quantify the flow velocity.