Peripheral vascular occlusive disease: evaluation with contrast-enhanced moving-bed MR angiography versus digital...

The purpose of our study was to compare contrast-enhanced moving-bed MR angiography and digital subtraction angiography in the evaluation of peripheral vascular occlusive disease.

This retrospective report includes 106 patients (45 women, 61 men) with known or suspected peripheral vascular occlusive disease who underwent MR angiography and intraarterial digital subtraction angiography of the peripheral arteries. MR angiography was performed on a 1.0-T unit using a moving-bed technique. Every leg was divided into 14 vascular segments, and severity of disease was scored in four categories. Digital subtraction angiography was the standard of reference.

In the 106 patients, 2378 vessel segments were evaluated with both imaging modalities. In 2156 segments, MR angiography and digital subtraction angiography were concordant for stenosis classification, in 188 segments the two modalities differed in one category, and in 24 segments they differed in two categories. MR angiography achieved sensitivity and specificity of 96.7% and 95.8%, respectively, for differentiating nonsignificant from hemodynamically significant stenosis (kappa = 0.91).

This study indicates that MR angiography is an accurate imaging modality in clinical practice. Our data support the concept that MR angiography can modify the diagnosis of suspected peripheral vascular occlusive disease.