title: Use of magnetisation transfer contrast to improve cerebral 3D MR angiography.
abstract: To improve 3D-time of flight (3D-TOF) magnetic resonance angiography, we used magnetisation transfer (MT) to increase the contrast between flowing blood and stationary tissues. With a 1.5 KHz off-resonance radio-frequency MT applied for 16 ms at a maximum power within specific absorption rate (SAR) limits, a 37% decrease in the signal of white matter was obtained, whereas the signal from flowing blood decreased by only 8%. An improvement in maximum intensity projection (MIP) image quality was obtained all MT-3DTOF studies on seven volunteers using progressively more powerful MT pulses. Routine clinical use of MT-3DTOF appears promising and can be achieved at any strength field.
authors.affiliation: Service de Neuroradiologie, Hopital Universitaire Pellegrin, Bordeaux, France.
authors.forename: V
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Dousset
authors.forename: J M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Franconi
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Degrèze
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Balderrama
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Lexa
authors.forename: J M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Caillé
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001783:Blood Flow Velocity / Q000502:physiology; D001921:Brain / Q000098:blood supply*; D006801:Humans; D007089:Image Enhancement / Q000379:methods*; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000379:methods*; D008297:Male; D008953:Models, Anatomic; D012016:Reference Values