Quantification of Blood Flow in Internal Cerebral Artery by Optical Flow Method on Digital Subtraction Angiography in Comparison with Time-Of-Flight Magnetic Resonance Angiography

Objective

This study compared data on the blood flow velocity in the internal carotid artery, which was obtained using the optical flow method (OFM) with digital subtraction angiography (DSA) and the time-of-flight (TOF) technique using magnetic resonance angiography (MRA).

Materials and Methods

Images were obtained from 12 cerebrovascular patients who underwent both brain DSA and MRA imaging. The OFM was applied on the DSA images to determine the average blood flow velocity. The calculated results were compared with the values obtained from the TOF-MRA data. A linear fit was performed on the data and Bland-Altman plots were analyzed.

Results

The blood flow velocity was closely associated with vascular diseases. Color-coding of the OFM measurements were superimposed on to the DSA images, which quantitatively illustrated the relative flow in the vessels. The average blood flow velocity was calculated using OFM and DSA, which demonstrated a high correlation with the MRA measurements in the anterior-posterior (AP) view (R = 0.71). In contrast, the average blood flow velocity was low in the lateral view (R = 0.28). The consistency between the high and low blood velocity in the AP view was better compared to the lateral view. The blood flow velocity distribution in the AP view was statistically closer to the MRA measurement compared to the lateral view.

Conclusions

This study evaluated the correlation of blood flow measured using DSA and TOF-MRA in a small heterogeneous group of patients with cerebrovascular lesions. OFM with DSA imaging reveals hemodynamic information and TOF-MRA.