An efficient and robust PC program to calculate MR based regional cerebral blood volume maps

In addition to morphological and anatomical information, functional information is increasingly used in clinical routine to assess pathological alterations of the brain. In addition to nuclear-medical methods there is a growing interest in using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to investigate tissue perfusion of the brain. The method employed is based on the indicator-dilution method after bolus injection of a contrast agent. In this paper we present the implementation of an efficient algorithm to calculate quantitatively the regional cerebral blood volume (rCBV). Computation requires about 1 min on a Macintosh Quadra 660AV. The results are represented as parameter images that allow global overall visual inspection as well as quantitative local evaluation by means of user-defined regions of interest.