Rapid quantification of stroke volume using magnetohydrodynamic voltages in 3T MRI: a feasibility study

Background The Electrocardiogram (ECG) is a standard clinical tool for cardiac physiological monitoring, required for cardiac synchronization during cardiac MRI, despite signal artifacts resulting from Magnetohydrodynamic voltages (VMHD). VMHD becomes significant during systole when rapidly ejected blood from the left ventricle into the aortic arch interacts with the strong magnetic field (B0) of the MRI [1]. Due to this relationship, we hypothesized that blood flow as a function of time in the cardiac cycle and left ventricular Stroke Volume (SV) could be derived using VMHD extracted from intra-MRI ECG. This method would allow for real-time beat-to-beat SV estimation during clinical MR scanning and cardiac MRI stress testing. This non-invasive real-time physiological measure of patient condition can be provided with the described software processing during conventional cardiac MRI routines, and potentially replace Invasive Blood Pressure during complex interventional procedures.