Effect of Blood Flow on Double Inversion Recovery Vessel Wall MRI of the Peripheral Arteries: Quantitation with T2 Mapping and Comparison with Flow-Insensitive T2-Prepared Inversion Recovery Imaging

摘要

Blood suppression in the lower extremities using flow-reliant methods such as double inversion recovery (DIR) may be problematic due to slow blood flow. T2 mapping using fast spin echo (FSE) acquisition was utilized to quantitate the effectiveness of DIR blood suppression in 13 subjects and showed that 25 ± 12% of perceived vessel wall pixels in the popliteal arteries contained artifactual blood signal. To overcome this problem, a flow-insensitive T2-prepared inversion recovery (T2IR) sequence was implemented and optimal timing parameters were calculated for FSE acquisition. Black blood vessel wall imaging of the popliteal and femoral arteries was performed using 2D T2IR-FSE in the same 13 subjects. Comparison with 2D DIR-FSE showed that T2IR-FSE reduced wall-mimicking blood artifacts that inflated DIR-FSE vessel wall area measurements in the popliteal artery.