Three-Station MR Angiography with High-Resolution Steady-State Vascular Imaging using Ferumoxytol

Pippa Storey¹, Mary Theresa Bruno¹, Ruth P. Lim¹, Hersh Chandarana¹, David R. Stoffel¹, Vivian S. Lee¹

Feraheme (ferumoxytol) is an ultrasmall superparamagnetic iron oxide (USPIO) agent that has recently been approved for human use in the United States. It has high T1 relaxivity and is not eliminated by the kidney, making it a potential alternative to gadolinium for vascular imaging in patients with renal insufficiency. We show that ferumoxytol can successfully be used in a conventional three-station MRA protocol, despite the fact that the dose injected for time-resolved imaging does not leave the blood pool before bolus-chase imaging. Furthermore, the long plasma half-life (15 hours) can be exploited to provide high-resolution steady-state images for venous assessment.