Many diseases can directly or indirectly affect blood flow, leading to such important public health problems as stroke and myocardial infarction. There has been a need for better methods to noninvasively assess blood flow, both as an aid to diagnosis and to help guide therapy. The sensitivity of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to blood flow offers the potential of a powerful method for the noninvasive study of blood flow. This has led to increasing research activity on the basic techniques for, and clinical applications of MRI studies of blood flow. While impressive progress has been, and is continuing to be made, there are still remaining technical problems have limited the widespread clinical application of MRI blood flow studies. The first major scientific meeting/workshop dedicated to the discussion of the state-of-the-art of MRI of blood flow and its prospects for future development will be held in Philadelphia on March 13- 14, 1989, under the auspices of the Society of Magnetic Resonance in Medicine. This grant application seeks funding to underwrite the publication of the proceedings of this conference, in order to disseminate the material presented and stimulate further research in this important area.
