Supra-aortic low-dose contrast-enhanced time-resolved magnetic resonance (MR) angiography at 3 T: comparison with time-of-flight MR angiography and high-resolution contrast-enhanced MR angiography

BackgroundLow-dose, time-resolved, contrast-enhanced, magnetic resonance angiography (TR-CEMRA) has been described previously; however, a comparative study between low dose TR-CEMRA and time-of-flight MRA (TOF-MRA) in the diagnosis of supra-aortic arterial stenosis has not yet been published.PurposeTo demonstrate the feasibility and effectiveness of low-dose TR-CEMRA compared with TOF-MRA, using high-resolution contrast-enhanced MRA (HR-CEMRA) as the reference standard.Material and MethodsThis prospective study consisted of 30 consecutive patients. All patients underwent TOF-MRA of the neck and circle of Willis and supra-aortic HR-CEMRA, followed by supra-aortic low-dose TR-CEMRA. Gadoterate meglumine (Gd-DOTA, Dotarem®, Guerbet, Roissy CdG Cedex, France) was injected at a dose of 0.1 mmol/kg for HR-CEMRA, followed by a 0.03 mmol/kg bolus for low-dose TR-CEMRA. Three readers evaluated the assessibility and image quality, and then two readers classified each stenosis into the following categories: normal (...