[Flow contrast behavior in fast MR angiography with an ECG-triggered, slice-selective inversion recovery turbo-FLASH technique].
OBJECTIVE
To optimise and evaluate fast "inflow"-based contrast-prepared gradient-echo magnetic resonance angiography (MRA) of blood vessels with pulsatile flow.


METHODS
We used a standard 2-D Turbo-FLASH sequence with an acquisition time of 0.9 s and a slice-selective hyperbolic secant inversion (SSIR) pulse for contrast preparation. Trigger delay and inversion time were systematically varied.


RESULTS
Abdominal blood vessels of volunteers showed high signal intensity compared to stationary tissue without pulsatile artifacts. However, depending on cardiac cycle and inversion time, venous vessels in particular exhibited a periodic signal drop by maximum 70% of the peak value. Using optimised parameters SSIR turbo-FLASH images of patients could be obtained with high flow contrast between normal and pathological structures.


CONCLUSIONS
With ECG triggering SSIR Turbo-FLASH MRA enables fast imaging of pulsatile vessels with optimised flow contrast.
Urhahn
R
R
Klinik für Radiologische Diagnostik, RWTH Aachen.
Drobnitzky
M
M
Günther
R W
RW
D000005:Abdomen / Q000098:blood supply; D004562:Electrocardiography; D006339:Heart Rate; D006801:Humans; D018810:Magnetic Resonance Angiography / Q000379:methods*
Verhalten des Flusskontrastes bei schneller MR-Angiographie mit einer EKG-getriggerten, schichtselektiven Inversion-recovery-Turbo-FLASH-Technik.