Quantification of vessel wall cyclic strain using cine phase contrast magnetic resonance imaging.

In vivo quantification of vessel wall cyclic strain has important applications in physiology and disease research and the design of intravascular devices. We describe a method to calculate vessel wall strain from cine PC-MRI velocity data. Forward-backward time integration is used to calculate displacement fields from the velocities, and cyclic Green-Lagrange strain is computed in segments defined by the displacements. The method was validated using a combination of in vitro cine PC-MRI and marker tracking studies. Phantom experiments demonstrated that wall displacements and strain could be calculated accurately from PC-MRI velocity data, with a mean displacement difference of 0.20 +/- 0.16 mm (pixel size 0.39 mm) and a mean strain difference of 0.01 (strain extent 0.20). A propagation of error analysis defined the relationship between the standard deviations in displacements and strain based on original segment length and strain magnitude. Based on the measured displacement standard deviation, strain standard deviations were calculated to be 0.015 (validation segment length) and 0.045 (typical segment length). To verify the feasibility of using this method in vivo, cyclic strain was calculated in the thoracic aorta of a normal human subject. Results demonstrated nonuniform deformation and circumferential variation in cyclic strain, with a peak average strain of 0.08 +/- 0.11.