Macgowan Lab
Principal Investigator
Christopher Macgowan, PhD
Post-docs, Fellows
Logi Vidarsson
Shengping Wu
Research Technologists
Joshua van Amerom
Labonny Biswas
Research Activities
My research interests centre on cardiovascular disease and, in particular, blood flow and its relation to vascular development and function. Since joining The Hospital For Sick Children at the University of Toronto, I built a laboratory focused on the magnetic resonance (MR) assessment of blood flow. New acquisition and processing methods to measure the velocity of spectrum of blood have been developed. Unlike Doppler ultrasound, MR-based methods do not need an acoustic window to the vessel, allowing radiologists to conveniently and accurately assess flow in large thoracic vessels. Also, these real-time methods do not require ECG gating and so are not affected by arrhythmia. In addition, the processing method to improve the accuracy of peak velocity measurements is being developed. These are used to stimate pressure gradients across stenotic valves and vessels, a clinical measure of stenotic severity.
Recent work in my lab has detailed the behaviour of injected contrast agents as they pass through the pulmonary system of children with congenital heart disease. This information has enabled higher quality angiograms to be obtained from these patients. Such anatomical information complements the physiological blood-flow information described above to provide a more complete picture of cardiovascular pathology.
Publications
Macgowan CK, Kellenberger CJ, Detsky JS, Roman K, Yoo S-J. Real-time magnetic resonance velocimetry: an in-vivo evaluation. J. Magn. Reson. Imag. 21:297–304 (2005)
Roman KS, Kellenberger CJ, Macgowan CK, Coles J, Redington A, Benson LN, Yoo S-J. How is pulmonary arterial blood flow affected by pulmonary venous obstruction in children? a phase-contrast MR study. Ped Radiology. Pediatr Radiol. 35(6),580-6 (2005)
Sack I, Macgowan CK, Samani A, Luginbuhl C, Oakden W, Plewes DB. Observation of non-linear shear wave propagation using magnetic resonance elastography. Magnetic Resonance in Medicine. 52(4):842-50 (2004)
Kang IS, Redington AN, Benson LN, Macgowan CK, Valsangiacomo ER, Roman K, Kellenberger CJ, Yoo SJ. Differential regurgitation in branch pulmonary arteries after repair of tetralogy of Fallot: a phase-contrast cine magnetic resonance study. Circulation. 107(23), 2938-43 (2003)
Macgowan CK, Henkelman RM, Wood ML. Pulse-wave velocity measured in one heartbeat using MR tagging. Magn. Reson. Med. 48(1), 115-121 (2002)
Macgowan CK, Wood ML. Fast measurements of the motion and velocity spectrum of blood using MR tagging. Magn. Reson. Med. 45(3), 461-469 (2001)
Macgowan CK, Wood ML. Motion measurements from individual MR signals using volume localization. J. Magn. Reson. Imag. 9, 670-678 (1999)
Contact Information
Admin Assistant
Ramona Zacharias
e-mail: ramona.zacharias@sickkids.ca
Mailing Address
The Hospital for Sick Children
555 University Ave.
Diagnostic Imaging
Toronto, ON M5G 1X8
Location
180 Dundas St. W, Room 422
Toronto, ON M5G 1Z8
Tel.: (416) 813-1069
Fax: (416) 813-7362
e-mail: christopher.macgowan@sickkids.ca