3D breath-hold contrast-enhanced MRA: a preliminary experience in aorta and iliac vascular disease

Our goal was to describe a 3D breath-hold (3D BH) contrast-enhanced MRA technique and apply the technique to patients with known or suspected aortic and iliac artery disease.

A fat-suppressed 3D GRE pulse sequence was designed with a total of 16 partition encodings. This took < 24 s for data acquisition in the abdomen and pelvis and was easily achieved during a single breath-hold. The technique was applied to 26 patients who presented with either known or suspected abdominal aortic or iliac vascular diseases. For comparison, in 19 patients a 2D TOF MRA pulse sequence with a traveling saturation band was used. Angiographic correlation was made in 18 studies.

The 3D BH MRA was easily applicable in the evaluation of vascular anatomy and pathology. In three cases, it was superior to 2D TOF and conventional angiography for visualizing clot within the wall of an aneurysm in the abdominal aorta. In 20 cases, both MRA techniques overestimated the degree of stenosis in the lower peripheral vessels; however, this was more pronounced on 2D TOF. In five cases, the aneurysm wall was clearly defined by 3D BH MRA, whereas there was considerable signal loss in 2D TOF due to complex flow. With 3D BH MRA, the entire vessel territory both in abdominal aorta and in iliac vessels was visualized in all cases without signal falloff in the FOV. Breath-holding provided static images of the vessels that were free of blurring due to respiratory motion.

Preliminary experience suggests that 3D BH with its distinct advantage of speed may serve as a useful screening tool for patients who cannot have conventional angiography or tolerate a lengthy MR examination of the abdominal aorta and iliac arteries.