4D abdominal MRA competes well with DSA

Abdominal MR angiography can now be performed in real-time, eliminating digital subtraction angiography's one remaining edge, according to a study published in the October issue of Magnetic Resonance in Medicine.

Oliver Wieben, Ph.D., and colleagues at the University of Wisconsin performed 3D contrast-enhanced abdominal MRA in five healthy subjects and two patients with abdominal vascular disease. They linked a PC-based workstation with a standard 1.5T scanner to process time-resolved contrast kinetics (TRICKS) 3D data sets in real-time in a single breath-hold.

The 4D system gauged diaphragm motion over a long breath-hold and processed multiple coil data simultaneously. It provided information on general flow patterns and may be beneficial in the presence of aortic aneurysms, occlusions, and dissections.