Automated quantitation of non-steady flow and lumen area using temporal correlation [MRI]

A robust method for automated quantitation of nonsteady flow and lumen area is presented. The method utilizes temporal information to differentiate between pixels within the lumen and a background region. Cross correlation (CC) is applied to identify the pixels with temporal information similar to a reference obtained from a pixel within the lumen region. The new method incorporates a computation of an optimal threshold; therefore, it provides an unbiased observer-independent quantitation. We have conducted in vitro and in vivo experiments to evaluate the reproducibility and accuracy of the method.