Prior research has shown that 4D flow MRI is a suitable technique for assessing blood flow throughout the body. Considering the importance of monitoring postoperative hemodynamic changes, researchers from Nippon Medical School Hospital in Tokyo decided to test the viability of 4D MRI for evaluating blood flow in the brain after cerebral bypass surgery.
The group performed 4D imaging using a 3-tesla MRI system on 11 patients before and three weeks after they underwent bypass surgery to treat an internal carotid artery aneurysm. The researchers found that 4D MRI recognized subtle increases in cerebral blood flow better than CT perfusion. They registered total blood volume as significantly higher with 4D MRI (roughly 15 mL/sec) than with CT perfusion (roughly 12 mL/sec).
"4D flow MRI with a six-minute scan time and 10-minute interpretation is feasible for assessing hemodynamic change after high-flow cerebral bypass surgery," Dr. Tetsuro Sekine, PhD, told AuntMinnie.com.
Whereas CT perfusion did not detect any hyperperfusion after surgery, 4D MRI recognized a subtle increase in blood flow, which may suggest that 4D MRI optimizes the quantitative assessment of hemodynamic changes in the brain, he concluded.
