PULMONARY MR ANGIOGRAPHY UTILIZING PHASED-ARRAY SURFACE COILS

Magnetic resonance angiography of the pulmonary vasculature was evaluated in 12 subjects using breath-hold gradient echo scans and surface coils at 1.5 T. Flow-compensated GRASS, spoiled GRASS (SPGR), and WARP-SPGR sequences were utilized. Comparisons were made among flip angles of 10-60-degrees, slice thicknesses of 3-10 mm, and body coil as well as Helmholtz pair and phased-array multiple coils. With 30-40 contiguous slices encompassing the lung, intrathoracic vasculature was segmented using a UNIX/X-windows based package dubbed VIDA. Three-dimensional anatomy was visualized by a brightest voxel projection algorithm, following reduction of chest wall pixel intensities by an operator-interactive module. Both SPGR (30-degrees flip angle, 4 mm slice thickness) and WARPSPGR (15-degrees flip angle, 5 mm slice thickness) in combination with phased-array multiple coils provided the most satisfactory images, based upon observations by three radiologists and signal-to-noise ratio measurements. The MR angiograms visualized vessels as distal as sixth to seventh order branches. The technique was successfully applied to three patients with pulmonary embolism. The results of this study demonstrate that the pulmonary vascular tree can be imaged by MR angiography combining a high resolution technique utilizing phased-array multiple coils, fast gradient echo sequences with breath-holding, and postprocessing of the volumetric image data. The technique is attractive since it is noninvasive and provides a full three-dimensional portrayal of the pulmonary vasculature.