Model-Free Maximum Likelihood Deconvolution (MLD): A Novel Perfusion Analysis Method in MRI to Calculate Myocardial Blood Flow

INTRODUCTION: A promising technique for Cardiac perfusion analysis and ischemia detection is rapid MRI following a bolus injection of a contrast agent. This is followed by quantitative kinetic analysis of the contrast agent during first pass [1]. The perfusion analysis method proposed in this study is an implementation of the central volume principle to calculate myocardial blood flow using deconvolution to obtain a tissue impulse response function (TIRF). The maximum of the TIRF yields an estimate of the myocardial blood flow. Since deconvolution is numerically unstable and very susceptible to noise, current deconvolution techniques use constraints to improve numerical stability but this can compromise accuracy [2]. In this study we introduce a novel contrast enhanced perfusion analysis method – maximum likelihood deconvolution (MLD) – to estimate myocardial blood flow. MLD is designed to overcome difficulties that arise due to noise without compromising accuracy. MLD is evaluated using computer simulations and clinically in three volunteers.