The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Feb. 20, 2001
Filed:
Dec. 28, 1998
Thomas K. F. Foo, Rockville, MD (US);
Vincent B. Ho, North Bethesda, MD (US);
Steven D. Wolff, New York, NY (US);
Other;
Abstract
A system and method for arterial and venous discrimination in MR venography is disclosed. By setting a noise level in the phase image (that is proportional to the velocity encoding value) at a threshold level between that of the arterial signals and the venous signals during the diastole portion of the cardiac cycle and acquiring a phase contrast MR image during the diastole portion, the arterial signals are effectively suppressed and a venous only image can be reconstructed. Post-processing steps are disclosed which can alternatively provide an arterial only image. By separately reconstructing a magnitude image and a phase image map to produce a magnitude image and a phase image, a masking module can create an output displaying venous only or arterial only images based on a user selection. The present invention allows for a complete noninvasive angiography exam to be completed within approximately 30 minutes.