Keywords:
Image verification, Arteriosclerosis, Aneurysms, Imaging sequences, MR-Angiography, MR, Kidney, Arteries / Aorta, Abdomen
Authors:
A. D. Sotomayor1, M. C. Sebastia2, L. Buñesch2, J. Guitart 1, R. Salvador Tarrason2, C. Nicolau2; 1Barcelona, Barcelona/ES, 2Barcelona/ES
DOI:
10.1594/ecr2013/C-1304
Results
Nineteen of the 24 patients underwent Unenhanced-MRA successfully.
Blurring artifacts secondary to respiratory motion resulted in not assessable image quality in three patients (Fig.
3) and in one patient,
the artifacts were caused by an aortic stent.
Unenhanced-MRA failed to identify a renal transplant artery because the vessel was oriented perpendicularly to the acquisition plane.
It was the only allograft studied.
A total of 38 main renal arteries were evaluated.
Four main renal arteries could not be evaluated as a result of a stent implantation (two cases) (Fig.
4) and thrombosis (two cases) (Fig.
5).
Unenhanced MRA provided excellent image quality in 18 patients,
good image quality in 12 patients and poor image quality in four patients.
The main renal artery was visible in 34 cases,
first order segmental arteries in 25 cases,
and second order segmental arteries in 19 cases.
Of the 34 arteries evaluated,
17 were normal (Fig.
6),
16 had stenosis (Figs.
7,
8 and 9) and one artery had an aneurysm (Fig.
10).
Unenhanced-MRA agreed with the gold standard diagnosis in all of the 17 normal arteries,
in the 16 with stenosis,
and in the artery with aneurysm.
Overall accuracy for both readers was 100%,
with a sensitivity of 100% and a specificity of 100%,
and 100% interobserver agreement in the grading of the severity of the stenosis.
Unenhanced MRA failed to depict one stenosis and one aneurysm located in two segmental arteries.