Feasibility of in vivo measurement of carotid wall shear rate using spiral Fourier velocity encoded MRI.

Arterial wall shear stress is widely believed to influence the formation and growth of atherosclerotic plaque; however, there is currently no gold standard for its in vivo measurement. The use of phase contrast MRI has proved to be challenging due to partial-volume effects and inadequate signal-to-noise ratio at the high spatial resolutions that are required. This work evaluates the use of spiral Fourier velocity encoded MRI as a rapid method for assessing wall shear rate in the carotid arteries. Wall shear rate is calculated from velocity histograms in voxels spanning the blood/vessel wall interface, using a method developed by Frayne and Rutt (Magn Reson Med 1995;34:378-387). This study (i) demonstrates the accuracy of the velocity histograms measured by spiral Fourier velocity encoding in a pulsatile carotid flow phantom compared with high-resolution two-dimensional Fourier transform phase contrast, (ii) demonstrates the accuracy of Fourier velocity encoding-based shear rate measurements in a numerical phantom designed using a computational fluid dynamics simulation of carotid flow, and (iii) demonstrates in vivo measurement of regional wall shear rate and oscillatory shear index in the carotid arteries of healthy volunteers at 3 T.