Nonlinear self-calibrated phase contrast correction in pediatric and congenital cardiovascular magnetic resonance imaging

Background Phase contrast (PC) MR flow measurements are affected by phase offset errors due to local eddy currents. Performing error correction using an MR phantom prolongs each CMR study and can impede scanner workflow. Recently, a novel post-hoc nonlinear self-calibrated PC correction algorithm has been developed that can be applied to PC flow data, with equivalence to phantom correction and improved accuracy over no correction demonstrated among adults with normal cardiac anatomy (Tan ET et al, ISMRM 2014). We aim to evaluate the effect of self-calibrated correction on PC flow measurements in pediatric and congenital CMR imaging and to validate it against phantom-corrected data.