title: Assessment of aortoiliac and renal arteries: MR angiography with parallel acquisition versus conventional MR angiography and digital subtraction angiography.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To prospectively compare the image quality, sensitivity, and specificity of three-dimensional gadolinium-enhanced magnetic resonance (MR) angiography accelerated by parallel acquisition (ie, fast MR angiography) with MR angiography not accelerated by parallel acquisition (ie, conventional MR angiography) for assessment of aortoiliac and renal arteries, with digital subtraction angiography (DSA) as the reference standard.
  
  
  METHODS
  The study was approved by the institutional review board; informed consent was obtained from all patients. Forty consecutive patients (33 men, seven women; mean age, 63 years) suspected of having aortoiliac and renal arterial stenoses and thus examined with DSA underwent both fast (mean imaging time, 17 seconds) and conventional (mean imaging time, 29 seconds) MR angiography. The arterial tree was divided into segments for image analysis. Two readers independently evaluated all MR angiograms for image quality, presence of arterial stenosis, and renal arterial variants. Image quality, sensitivity, and specificity were analyzed on per-patient and per-segment bases for multiple comparisons (with Bonferroni correction) and for dependencies between segments (with patient as the primary sample unit). Interobserver agreement was evaluated by using kappa statistics.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Overall, the image quality with fast MR angiography was significantly better (P=.001) than that with conventional MR angiography. At per-segment analysis, the image quality of fast MR angiograms of the distal renal artery tended to be better than that of conventional MR angiograms of these vessels. Differences in sensitivity for the detection of arterial stenosis between the two MR angiography techniques were not significant for either reader. Interobserver agreement in the detection of variant renal artery anatomy was excellent with both conventional and fast MR angiography (kappa=1.00).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Fast MR angiography and conventional MR angiography do not differ significantly in terms of arterial stenosis grading or renal arterial variant detection.
authors: Institute of Diagnostic Radiology, University Hospital Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland.
authors: Reto
authors: R
authors: Sutter
authors: Daniel
authors: D
authors: Nanz
authors: Amelie M
authors: AM
authors: Lutz
authors: Thomas
authors: T
authors: Pfammatter
authors: Burkhardt
authors: B
authors: Seifert
authors: Anja
authors: A
authors: Struwe
authors: Christina
authors: C
authors: Heilmaier
authors: Dominik
authors: D
authors: Weishaupt
authors: Borut
authors: B
authors: Marincek
authors: Jürgen K
authors: JK
authors: Willmann
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D015901:Angiography, Digital Subtraction; D001012:Aorta, Abdominal / Q000033:anatomy & histology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007083:Iliac Artery / Q000033:anatomy & histology*; D021621:Imaging, Three-Dimensional; D018810:Magnetic Resonance Angiography / Q000379:methods*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D016491:Peripheral Vascular Diseases / Q000175:diagnosis; D011446:Prospective Studies; D012077:Renal Artery / Q000033:anatomy & histology*; D012078:Renal Artery Obstruction / Q000175:diagnosis; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity