Abstract
Objective: In a recent multi-center trial of gadolinium contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance angiography (Gd-MRA) for diagnosis of acute pulmonary embolism (PE), two centers utilized a common MRI platform though at different field strengths (1.5T and 3T) and realized a signal-to-noise gain with the 3T platform. This retrospective analysis investigates this gain in signal-to-noise of pulmonary vascular targets. Methods: Thirty consecutive pulmonary MRA examinations acquired on a 1.5T system at one institution were compared to 30 consecutive pulmonary MRA examinations acquired on a 3T system at a different institution. Both systems were from the same MRI manufacturer and both used the same Gd-MRA pulse sequence, although there were some protocol adjustments made due to field strength differences. Region-of-interests were manually defined on the main pulmonary artery, 4 pulmonary veins, thoracic aorta, and background lung for objective measurement of signal-to-noise, contrast-to-noise, and bolus timing bias between centers. Results: The 3T pulmonary MRA protocol achieved higher spatial resolution yet maintained significantly higher signal-to-noise ratio (≥13%, p = 0.03) in the main pulmonary vessels relative to 1.5T. There was no evidence of operator bias in bolus timing or patient hemodynamic differences between groups. Conclusion: Relative to 1.5T, higher spatial resolution Gd-MRA can be achieved at 3T with a sustained or greater signal-to-noise ratio of enhanced vasculature.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 134-139 |
Number of pages | 6 |
Journal | Clinical and Applied Thrombosis/Hemostasis |
Volume | 18 |
Issue number | 2 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Mar 2012 |
Keywords
- MRI
- field strength
- image quality
- pulmonary embolism