Ungated non-contrast enhanced magnetic resonance angiography using multiple subset reconstruction and temporal maximum intensity projection

A medical imaging system comprising:

• an MRI machine;
• and
• a computer system coupled to the MRI machine, the computer system comprising:
• a processor;
• and
• a memory coupled to the processor, the memory storing instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the computer system to:
• cause the MRI machine to apply a radiofrequency pulse to a subject;
• after a quiescent interval, cause the MRI machine to perform a radial acquisition over a duration corresponding to a cardiac cycle of the subject to generate acquisition data;
• reconstruct a plurality of 2-D images across a plurality of sequential temporal phases within the duration from the acquisition data, each of the 2-D images depicting a same partial cross-section of—the subject and being reconstructed from a continuously sampled subset of the plurality of the sequential temporal phases;
• and
• generate a temporal maximum intensity projection image of the same partial cross-section of the subject by tracking an intensity of each pixel across the plurality of 2-D images and selecting a maximum intensity value for the pixel across the plurality of 2-D images, which corresponds to a maximum intensity during the cardiac cycle, such that vascular stripe artifacts in the temporal maximum intensity projection image are removed relative to the plurality of 2-D images.