U.S. Philips Corporation

Koninklijke Philips Corporation N.V.

Philips Electronics North America Corporation

Matthias Stuber

Klaas P Pruessmann

Peter Boesiger

Xavier G Golay

Markus B Scheidegger

Rene M Botnar

Rene Botnar

Warren J Manning

Henryk M Faas

This invention relates to methods and apparatus for medical imaging of parts of a patient in which imaging data acquisition is gated by a combination of electrocardiogram (ECG) and peripheral pulse (PPU) signals from the patient. The methods of the invention include obtaining ECG signals from a patient in a medical imaging apparatus, obtaining PPU signals from the patient, providing one or more synchronization signals in dependence on both the ECG signals and the PPU signals, wherein the synchronization signals indicate occurrences of pre-determined phases of the cyclic movements of the heart only if the PPU signals also indicate that the determined heart phase is physiologically possible, and controlling the medical imaging apparatus in dependence on the synchronization signals to collect imaging data synchronized with cyclic movements of the heart from the patient in the examination zone and to reconstruct a medical image of a part of the patient from the collected imaging data. The medical imaging apparatus of the invention includes such units in addition to the imaging units as are necessary from the practice of the methods of the invention. This invention is preferably applied to magnetic resonance imaging and to computed tomographic x-ray imaging.

Methods and devices for combined ECG and PPU controlled magnetic resonance imaging

The invention relates to a magnetic resonance method for determining a perfusion image of a portion, which method comprises the following steps: generation of a control pulse sequence in a first portion of the body and measurement of a control data set by generation of an MR-image sequence for imaging of an third portion of the body, generation of a labelling pulse sequence in a second portion of the body wherein a fluid flows towards the third portion, and measurement of the labelled data set by generation of the MR-image sequence for imaging the third portion of the body, and reconstruction of the perfusion image of the fluid in a mass of the third portion of the body from a combination of the control data set and the labelled data set. In order to reduce the geometric restrictions and compensate magnetic transfer effects, the labelling pulse sequence comprises a first selective RF pulse and a second RF pulse, the control pulse sequence comprises the first selective RF pulse and a third RF pulse, a phase of the second RF pulse being opposite to that of the third RF pulse.

Method and device for generating a perfusion image of a body portion using magnetic resonance imaging

The invention relates to a method for determining an image of a portion of a body by means of magnetic resonance (MR), which method comprises a step for rotating a magnetization of spins in a selected portion of the body and by generating an RF pulse in a selected slice. The RF pulse comprises a concatenation of a selective first RF pulse and a second selective RF pulse.

Method and device for magnetic resonance imaging

This invention relates to methods and apparatus for magnetic resonance (MR) imaging of moving parts of a patient in which flip angles for the excitation of nuclear magnetization are adaptively selected during image data acquisition in order to minimize artifacts. In particular, the flip angles are selected so that a smooth distribution of signal-strengths in k-space results even though the order of phase-encoding gradients is also adaptively selected in dependence of the measured instantaneous state of motion of the moving part. The invention also includes MR apparatus for practicing the described methods and software for controlling an MR apparatus to practice the methods.

Magnetic resonance imaging method and system with adaptively selected flip angels

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Brookline, MA, United States of America

Matthias Stuber