A practical MRI technique for detecting Abdominal Aorta Aneurism and Peripheral Arterial Disease

Aim: Peripheral Arterial Disease(PAD) and abdominal aorta aneurysm(AAA) are frequent problems in geriatric population. In DSA, CTA or MRA techniques contrast agents has to be used for diagnosis that can be nephrotoxic for elderly patients. Magnetic resonans imaging (MRI) is the most powerful, non-ionising radiological diagnostic tool that has the highest soft tissue contrast resolution. The aim of our study was to investigate the effectivity of MRI by the means of detecting the AAA and PAD in comparison with DSA. Material and Method: After getting ethical commitee approvel and informed consent, we have performed Balanced turbo field echo(B-TFE) MRI technique without contrast agent in 1.5 Tesla MRI device before DSA examination. The luminal diameters of renal arteries, infrarenal abdominal aorta, iliac and femoral arteries was measured by using Philips DICOM Viewer R2.2 application. The intraclass corelation coefficient and reliability used to check if the techniques could be used for each other and the t-test was used to measure the differences between them. Results: There has been a high relationship between B-TFE and DSA in detecting the pathologies of larger arteries like aorta. In the case of small arterial pathologies, there is relatively lower relationship between BTFE and DSA. Discussion: For the diagnosis of AAA and PAD, DSA is the gold standart technique but it is invasive and patients have radiation exposure. In the follow up of geriatric patients with larger arterial pathologies B-TFE can be used instead of contrast enhanced MRA and invasive DSA