Peripheral arterial wall imaging using contrast-enhanced, susceptibility-weighted phase imaging.

Area of Science:

• Medical Imaging
• Radiology
• Vascular Imaging

Background:

• Susceptibility-weighted imaging (SWI) is used for visualizing blood vessels.
• Delineating the peripheral arterial wall in SWI phase images can be challenging.
• Gadolinium-based contrast agents are widely used in MRI.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the effectiveness of gadolinium contrast agents in improving peripheral arterial wall delineation on SWI phase images.
• To assess the impact of contrast enhancement on phase difference and contrast-to-noise ratio in SWI.

Main Methods:

• High-resolution SWI was performed on 11 healthy volunteers before and after gadolinium contrast injection.
• Postcontrast scans were acquired at 1 and 11 minutes post-injection.
• Comparison with double-inversion recovery turbo-spin-echo (TSE) and double-echo gradient-echo sequences was conducted.

Main Results:

• Gadolinium contrast significantly increased phase contrast-to-noise ratio (up to 85.7%) and altered phase difference.
• Morphological measurements showed good agreement between SWI and TSE, indicating reliable lumen and wall area assessment.
• Gradient-echo studies demonstrated comparable phase measurements to SWI.

Conclusions:

• Contrast-enhanced SWI significantly improves the delineation of the peripheral arterial wall.
• This technique offers a promising approach for non-invasive vessel wall imaging.