Accelerated phase-contrast for diastolic function evaluation using k-t PCA methods

Diastolic function evaluation requires estimates of early and late diastolic mitral valve flow velocities (E and A), normally evaluated by echocardiography, using phase contrast (PC). Our goal was to investigate k-t principal component analysis (PCA), constrained by either global and local principal components, for E and A measurements. Importantly, we found that retaining the central k-space used in estimating the principal components improved the final velocity maps. We compared local PCA with global PCA. Retrospectively undersampled images showed strong agreement with standard PC acquisitions. Higher E and A were observed using higher temporal resolution in prospective k-t PCA PC acquisitions.