Intracranial dural arteriovenous fistulas: evaluation with 3-T four-dimensional MR angiography using arterial spin...

To evaluate whether 3-T four-dimensional (4D) arterial spin-labeling (ASL)-based magnetic resonance (MR) angiography is useful for the evaluation of shunt lesions in patients with intracranial dural arteriovenous fistulas (AVFs).

Institutional review board approval and prior written informed consent from all patients were obtained. Nine patients with intracranial dural AVF (seven men, two women; age range, 52-77 years; mean age, 63 years) underwent 4D ASL MR angiography at 3 T and digital subtraction angiography (DSA). Spin tagging was with flow-sensitive alternating inversion recovery with Look-Locker sampling. At 300-millisecond intervals, seven dynamic images with a spatial resolution of 0.5 × 0.5 × 0.6 mm(3) were obtained. The 4D ASL MR angiographic and DSA images were read by two sets of two independent readers each. Interobserver and intermodality agreement was assessed with the κ statistic.

On all 4D ASL MR angiographic images, the major intracranial arteries were demonstrated at a temporal resolution of 300 milliseconds. Interobserver agreement was excellent for the fistula site (κ = 1.00; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.00, 1.00), moderate for the main arterial feeders (κ = 0.53; 95% CI: 0.08, 0.98), and good for venous drainage (κ = 0.77; 95% CI: 0.35, 1.00). Intermodality agreement was excellent for the fistula site and venous drainage (κ = 1.00; 95% CI: 1.00, 1.00) and good for the main arterial feeders (κ = 0.80; 95% CI: 0.58, 1.00).

The good-to-excellent agreement between 3-T 4D ASL MR angiographic and DSA findings suggests that 3-T 4D ASL MR angiography is a useful tool for the evaluation of intracranial dural AVFs.