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Estimation and visualization of regional and global pulmonary perfusion with 3D magnetic resonance angiography
Author(s) -
Halliburton Sandra S.,
Paschal Cynthia B.,
Rothpletz John D.,
Loyd James E.
Publication year - 2001
Publication title -
journal of magnetic resonance imaging
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.563
H-Index - 160
eISSN - 1522-2586
pISSN - 1053-1807
DOI - 10.1002/jmri.10022
Subject(s) - perfusion , lung , medicine , contrast (vision) , magnetic resonance imaging , perfusion scanning , magnetic resonance angiography , nuclear medicine , blood flow , radiology , angiography , physics , optics
The purposes of this work were to estimate regional and global pulmonary perfusion and display pulmonary vasculature in 10 postoperative lung transplant patients using breath‐hold, contrast‐enhanced (0.2 mmol/kg, Gd DTPA‐BMA, Omniscan, Nycomed, Inc., Princeton, NJ), three‐dimensional (3D) magnetic resonance angiography (MRA) with specially designed double‐variable‐angle uniform signal excitation (VUSE) radio frequency (RF) pulses. Double‐VUSE scans imaged both lungs simultaneously during contrast agent injection and provided both qualitative and quantitative information about pulmonary perfusion. Double‐VUSE pulses clearly displayed healthy and diseased vessels. There was a strong correlation between contrast‐enhanced double‐VUSE MRA flow estimates and those measured from nuclear scans for global or whole lung (R 2 = 0.95; P = 0.2) and upper, central, and lower thirds of the lung (R 2 = 0.89, 0.92, and 0.86, respectively; P < 0.001 for each region). In conclusion, 3D MRA using VUSE pulses in combination with a contrast agent is a valuable tool for the assessment of pulmonary perfusion that simultaneously acquires data for both the qualitative display of pulmonary vessels and the quantification of regional and global differential pulmonary blood flow. J. Magn. Reson. Imaging 2001;14:734–740. © 2001 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.