Initial Evaluation of a New NCE Angiography Method in Patients and Comparison with TRICKS

Andrew Nicholas Priest¹, Ilse Joubert¹, Andrew P. Winterbottom¹, Teik Choon See¹, Martin John Graves¹, David John Lomas¹

A recently demonstrated non-contrast-enhanced MRA technique (VANESSA) uses a controllable, modified MSDE preparation module to obtain bright- and dark-blood images, which are subtracted to give an image showing only flowing blood. In this study, the method is evaluated for the first time in patients: the peripheral vasculature is assessed and compared to standard contrast-enhanced imaging using TRICKS. The new sequence has lower artefact levels, and most vessels are fully visualised. However the popliteal arteries are often poorly seen, possibly because the distorted flow profiles in patients were not adequately accounted for in the determination of the sequence timing.