AN EFFICIENT AND ROBUST PC PROGRAM TO CALCULATE MR BIASED REGIONAL CEREBRAL BLOOD-VOLUME MAPS

In addition to morphological and anatomical information, functional in formation is increasingly used in clinical routine to assess pathologi cal alterations of the brain. In addition to nuclear-medical methods t here is a growing interest in using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) t o investigate tissue perfusion of the brain. The method employed is ba sed on the indicator-dilution method after bolus injection of a contra st agent. In this paper we present the implementation of an efficient algorithm to calculate quantitatively the regional cerebral blood volu me (rCBV). Computation requires about 1 min on a Macintosh Quadra 660A V. The results are represented as parameter images that allow global o verall visual inspection as well as quantitative local evaluation by m eans of user-defined regions of interest. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Lt d.