MR angiography with sensitivity encoding (SENSE) for suspected pulmonary embolism: comparison with MDCT and ventilation-perfusion scintigraphy.
OBJECTIVE
The aim of our study was to determine the utility of time-resolved contrast-enhanced MR angiography combined with sensitivity encoding (SENSE) for patients with pulmonary embolism. SUBJECTS AND METHODS. Forty-eight consecutive patients (26 men and 22 women; age range, 27-73 years; mean age, 55 years) with suspected pulmonary embolism underwent chest radiography, contrast-enhanced MDCT, MR angiography with SENSE, ventilation-perfusion scintigraphy, and pulmonary angiography. MR angiography with SENSE was performed using IV administration of gadolinium contrast medium with a 3D turbo field-echo pulse sequence (TR/TE, 4.0/1.2; flip angle, 30 degrees ) on a 1.5-T scanner. Capabilities of diagnosing pulmonary embolism using MR angiography (data set A), contrast-enhanced MDCT (data set B), contrast-enhanced MDCT with MR angiography (data set C), ventilation-perfusion scintigraphy (data set D), and contrast-enhanced MDCT with ventilation-perfusion scintigraphy (data set E) were determined by receiver operating characteristic analysis, using the results of pulmonary angiography as the reference standard. The diagnostic capability of each data set was analyzed on a per-vascular zone and a per-patient basis with the McNemar test.


RESULTS
Sensitivity and specificity of data set A were 83% and 97%, respectively, on a per-vascular zone basis and 92% and 94%, respectively, on a per-patient basis. Specificity and accuracy of data set A were significantly higher than those of data set D on a per-patient basis (p < 0.05).


CONCLUSIONS
Time-resolved MR angiography with SENSE is effective for the diagnosis of pulmonary embolism.
Ohno
Yoshiharu
Y
Department of Radiology, Kobe University Graduate School of Medicine, 7-5-2 Kusunoki-cho, Chuo-ku, Kobe 650-0017, Japan. yosirad@kobe-u.ac.jp
Higashino
Takanori
T
Takenaka
Daisuke
D
Sugimoto
Kouji
K
Yoshikawa
Takeshi
T
Kawai
Hiroya
H
Fujii
Masahiko
M
Hatabu
Hiroto
H
Sugimura
Kazuro
K
D003287:Contrast Media; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008168:Lung / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D018810:Magnetic Resonance Angiography / Q000379:methods*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011655:Pulmonary Embolism / Q000175:diagnosis*; D012372:ROC Curve; D011877:Radionuclide Imaging; D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed; D014692:Ventilation-Perfusion Ratio
D003287:Contrast Media