Spatio-Temporal Modelling of First-Pass Perfusion Cardiovascular MRI

Abstract

Myocardial perfusion MRI provides valuable insight into how coronary artery and microvascular diseases affect myocardial tissue. Stenosis in a coronary vessel leads to reduced maximum blood flow (MBF), but collaterals may secure the blood supply of the myocardium but with altered tracer kinetics. To date, quantitative analysis of myocardial perfusion MRI has only been performed on a local level, largely ignoring the contextual information inherent in different myocardial segments. This paper proposes a Hierarchical Bayesian Model (HBM) to quantify the dependencies between local kinetic systems for perfusion quantification. In the proposed framework, all local systems are modelled simultaneously along with their dependencies, thus allowing more robust context-driven estimation of local kinetics. Detailed validation on both simulated and patient data is provided.