Fast vascular imaging with flow presaturation

Selective flow presaturation has been achieved with crafted radio-frequency pulses that saturate proton magnetization over one or more independently defined sections. Flow signal and associated pulsation artifacts from arterial, venous, or both arterial and venous flow can be suppressed for improved definition of cardiac and vascular structures. In addition to improving routine spin-echo imaging of cardiovascular structures, flow presaturation can be used to improve ventricular wall definition on gradient-echo cineangiographic studies. Selective presaturation can also be used to tag and track a bolus of blood over the cardiac cycle, which permits velocity quantitation and may prove useful for assessment of organ perfusion