1. Differential visualization of arterial and venous flow in deep inferior epigastric perforator imaging with vector-flow perforator Phase Contrast Angiography (pPCA) 
Xiangyu Yang, Albert H. Chao, Michael J. Miller, Michael V. Knopp 
Journal of Plastic, Reconstructive & Aesthetic Surgery 
Volume 72, Issue 1, Pages (January 2019)
DOI: /j.bjps
Copyright © 2018 British Association of Plastic, Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgeons Terms and Conditions

2. Figure 1
Deep inferior epigastric artery perforator flap pPCA and CTA data (both 1.5-mm-thickness) from a 50-year-old female patient with BMI The pPCA images (A) demonstrate a higher degree of contrast, and less noise than CTA images of the same slice thickness (B). Inlets in (A) and (B) demonstrate that pPCA visualizes not only perforator arteries, but also perforator veins that are invisible in CTA images.
Journal of Plastic, Reconstructive & Aesthetic Surgery  , DOI: ( /j.bjps )
Copyright © 2018 British Association of Plastic, Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgeons Terms and Conditions

3. Figure 2
Coronal (A) and axial (B) DIEP pPCA maximum intensity projections (∼20 mm thickness) obtained from a 33-year-old male volunteer with BMI 26.2 reveals a Type I perforating artery/vein pair slightly superior to the umbilicus on the left hemi-abdomen. The perforators diverge into three superior (I/II/III) and one inferior (IV) vessels in subcutaneous fat. In a 1.5-mm-thick axial PCA vessel image near the exit point of the perforators (C), arteries and veins are well delineated as separate vascular structures, but both are depicted as hyperintense (bright) structures with the magnitude representation of velocity. Additional post-processing steps can be applied to pPCA raw data in order to extract three phase maps corresponding to the three orthogonal components of the velocity vector. Using this vector representation, arterial and venous flows can be differentiated by their direction. In the anterior-posterior (AP) phase map (D), the hypointense (dark) appearance of the central (I) and middle (II) superior vessels suggest they are superficial veins with a proximal (anterior-to-posterior) flow pattern. The lateral superior vessel (III) has a hyperintense appearance, suggesting that it is an artery with a distal (posterior to anterior) flow pattern. This assessment is also supported by the analysis of flow patterns along the other two directions (left-right and head-foot). The perforating artery (red arrow) and vein (blue arrow) are also discernible with this approach.
Journal of Plastic, Reconstructive & Aesthetic Surgery  , DOI: ( /j.bjps )
Copyright © 2018 British Association of Plastic, Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgeons Terms and Conditions