Demonstration of aortic lesions via cine magnetic resonance imaging

Cine-MRI was used to evaluate eight patients with known thoracic aorta disease. Included in this study were three aortic coarctations, two aortic dissections, an aneurysm, a posttraumatic pseudoaneurysm, and a patent ductus arteriosus. Cine-MRI was found to be valuable in the assessment of the pathologic anatomy and associated flow disturbances in these disorders. In seven cases, the images demonstrated the aortic lesion and aberrant blood flow. Our technique was unable to image the structural lesion in the patient with patent ductus arteriosus, but the abnormal blood flow was shown. Angiographic data were available on three of the cases to confirm the MR findings. The MRI images were obtained in axial, coronal, sagittal, and oblique planes using fast field echo acquisition technique of cine-MRI. We found the additional data or benefits provided by cine-MRI, when compared to cardiac gated spin echo images, to be most advantageous in the cases of aortic coarctation and dissection only.