Evaluation of MR cisternography of the cerebellopontine angle using a balanced fast-field-echo sequence: preliminary findings

We evaluated the feasibility of MR cisternography by the balanced fast-field-echo (bFFE) sequence, comparing with that by a turbo-spin-echo (TSE) sequence, for cerebellopontine angle lesions on a 1.5-T imager (Gyroscan Intera, Philips, Best, The Netherlands). The bFFE MR cisternograms depicted target cranial nerves with less cerebrospinal fluid pulsation artifacts than TSE cisternograms and visualized an acoustic schwannoma in 6 of 44 patients with suspicion and a causative vessel of hemifacial spasm in all of 3 patients in a short scanning time (1 min 53 s). The bFFE sequence can be promising for MR cisternography in the diagnosis of cerebellopontine angle lesions.