Peripheral vasculature: whole-body MR angiography with midfemoral venous compression--initial experience

Five volunteers and 10 patients suspected of having peripheral vascular disease underwent multistation contrast material-enhanced three-dimensional whole-body magnetic resonance (MR) angiography. The first examination, based on standard protocol, lasted 72 seconds, while the following two examinations, performed with a high-spatial-resolution T1-weighted gradient-recalled-echo sequence for the last two stations (lower extremities) lasted 170 seconds. In the second high-resolution examination, midfemoral venous compression was used. Intraindividual comparison showed the high-resolution protocol with venous compression resulted in the best qualitative and quantitative image quality through higher signal-to-noise and contrast-to-noise ratios in the calf arteries. Despite prolonged acquisition times, there was no venous contamination. The data suggest that midfemoral venous compression should be incorporated in multistation protocols of the lower extremities to improve depiction of calf arteries without disturbing venous overlap.