Soeren Johst1,2, Karsten H. Wrede1,3,
Sebastian Schmitter4, Philipp Dammann1,3, Marc U.
Schlamann3, Ibrahim E. Sandalcioglu5, Ulrich Sure5,
Susanne C. Ladd1,2, Mark E. Ladd1,2, Stefan Maderwald1
1Erwin L. Hahn Institute
for MRI, University Duisburg-Essen, Essen, Germany; 2Department of
Diagnostic & Interventional Radiology & Neuroradiology, University
Hospital Essen, Essen, Germany; 3Department of Neurosurgery,
University Hospital Essen, Essen, Germany; 4Center for Magnetic
Resonance Research, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, United States; 5Department
of Neurosurgery, University Hospital, Essen, Germany
High-quality pre-operative / pre-interventional images are essential for the treatment of intra-cerebral vascular pathologies. Taking advantage of the inherently higher SNR at 7T, we generated a high-resolution 7T clinical whole-brain protocol for the depiction of cerebral vascular structures, which was optimized in volunteer scans and applied in 11 patients with vascular pathologies. To stay within clinically acceptable overall acquisition time, the acquisition of a considerably greater number of slices and higher GRAPPA acceleration factors were enabled. The VERSE algorithm was used for time-of-flight MR angiography and enabled theoretically 3 times as many slices within the SAR restrictions.