Simultaneous time of flight-MRA and T2* imaging for cerebrovascular MRI

3D multi-echo gradient-recalled echo (ME-GRE) can simultaneously generate time-of-flight magnetic resonance angiography (pTOF) in addition to T2*-based susceptibility-weighted images (SWI). We assessed the clinical performance of pTOF generated from a 3D ME-GRE acquisition compared with conventional TOF-MRA (cTOF).

Eighty consecutive children were retrospectively identified who obtained 3D ME-GRE alongside cTOF. Two blinded readers independently assessed pTOF derived from 3D ME-GRE and compared them with cTOF. A 5-point Likert scale was used to rank lesion conspicuity and to assess for diagnostic confidence.

Across 80 pediatric neurovascular pathologies, a similar number of lesions were reported on pTOF and cTOF (43-40%, respectively, p > 0.05). Rating of lesion conspicuity was higher with cTOF (4.5 ± 1.0) as compared with pTOF (4.0 ± 0.7), but this was not significantly different (p = 0.06). Diagnostic confidence was rated higher with cTOF (4.8 ± 0.5) than that of pTOF (3.7 ± 0.6; p < 0.001). Overall, the inter-rater agreement between two readers for lesion count on pTOF was classified as almost perfect (κ = 0.98, 96% CI 0.8-1.0).

In this study, TOF-MRA simultaneously generated in addition to SWI from 3D MR-GRE can serve as a diagnostic adjunct, particularly for proximal vessel disease and when conventional TOF-MRA images are absent.