Magnetic resonance angiography of the abdominal aorta

Magnetic resonance angiography (MRA) of the abdominal aorta was performed in 36 patients using the "bright-blood" technique on the basis of a series of flow-compensated breath-hold 2 D-GE pulse sequences. Diverse diseases included complete occlusion, stenosis, atherosclerotic or dissecting aneurysm and renal artery stenosis. Coronal and axial projection angiograms [maximum intensity projection (MIP) algorithm] and individual GE images were compared with DSA and contrast-enhanced computed tomography (CT). Our data showed a good correlation of MR and digital subtraction arteriography (DSA) or CT resp. in all cases, when both rotating MIP angiograms and individual GE images were analyzed. Thus, MR is suggested to be a useful noninvasive diagnostic method for the abdominal aorta, particularly in preoperative staging of aneurysms, aortic occlusive disease, and stenosis of the proximal main renal artery. Drawbacks of the method are a signal loss in slow or turbulent flow conditions, and unsatisfactory spatial resolution in small vessels.