Faculty Collaboration Database

Assessment of pulmonary artery stiffness using velocity-encoding magnetic resonance imaging: evaluation of techniques. Magn Reson Imaging 2011 Sep;29(7):966-74

Date

06/07/2011

Pubmed ID

21641745

DOI

10.1016/j.mri.2011.04.012

Scopus ID

2-s2.0-80051680311 (requires institutional sign-in at Scopus site)   26 Citations

Abstract

The loss of pulmonary artery (PA) compliance has significant pathophysiological effect on the right ventricle. Noninvasive and reliable assessment of PA wall stiffness would be an essential determiner of right heart load and a clinically useful factor to assess cardiovascular risk. Two MRI techniques have been proposed for assessing PA stiffness by measuring pulse wave velocity (PWV): transit time (TT) and flow area (QA). However, no data are available that compares the two techniques and evaluates their performance, especially over a wide range of PWV values or at 3.0-T, which is the purpose of the present study. Thirty-three patients with different heart conditions were imaged using optimized high-temporal resolution and high-spatial resolution velocity-encoding MRI sequences. Statistical analysis was conducted to study intermethod, interobserver and intraobserver variabilities. The PWV measurements using TT and QA techniques showed good agreement (P>0.1). The Bland-Altman analysis showed negligible differences between the two methods (mean±S.D.=0.11±0.35 m/s, correlation coefficient r=0.94). The repeated measurements showed low interobserver and intraobserver variabilities, although the S.D. of the differences was larger in the QA technique. The mean±S.D. of the TT/QA measurement differences were -0.05±0.2/0.0±0.36 m/s and 0.02±0.26/0.02±0.39 m/s for the interobserver and intraobserver differences, respectively. In conclusion, each technique has its own advantages and disadvantages. The two techniques result in similar measurements, although the QA method is more subjective due to its dependency on operator intervention.

Author List

Ibrahim el-SH, Shaffer JM, White RD

MESH terms used to index this publication - Major topics in bold

Adult
Aged
Blood Flow Velocity
Female
Heart
Humans
Image Processing, Computer-Assisted
Lung Diseases
Magnetic Resonance Imaging
Male
Middle Aged
Observer Variation
Pulmonary Artery
Pulsatile Flow
Reproducibility of Results
Time Factors
Vascular Stiffness