PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Deibler, A.R.
AU  - Pollock, J.M.
AU  - Kraft, R.A.
AU  - Tan, H.
AU  - Burdette, J.H.
AU  - Maldjian, J.A.
TI  - Arterial Spin-Labeling in Routine Clinical Practice, Part 1: Technique and Artifacts
AID  - 10.3174/ajnr.A1030
DP  - 2008 Aug 01
TA  - American Journal of Neuroradiology
PG  - 1228--1234
VI  - 29
IP  - 7
4099  - http://www.ajnr.org/content/29/7/1228.short
4100  - http://www.ajnr.org/content/29/7/1228.full
SO  - Am. J. Neuroradiol.2008 Aug 01; 29
AB  - SUMMARY: The routine use of arterial spin-labeling (ASL) in a clinical population has led to the depiction of diverse brain pathologic features. Unique challenges in the acquisition, postprocessing, and analysis of cerebral blood flow (CBF) maps are encountered in such a population, and high-quality ASL CBF maps can be generated consistently with attention to quality control and with the use of a dedicated postprocessing pipeline. Familiarity with commonly encountered artifacts can help avoid pitfalls in the interpretation of CBF maps. The purpose of this review was to describe our experience with a heterogeneous collection of ASL perfusion cases with an emphasis on methodology and common artifacts encountered with the technique. In a period of 1 year, more than 3000 pulsed ASL cases were performed as a component of routine clinical brain MR evaluation at both 1.5 and 3T. These ASL studies were analyzed with respect to overall image quality and patterns of perfusion on final gray-scale DICOM images and color Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPEG) CBF maps, and common artifacts and their impact on final image quality were categorized.