Spiral MR angiography of the popliteal trifurcation.

be an excellent method of visual izing the peripheral vasculature [1]; however, the challenge remains to reduce acquisition time while preserving good spatial and contrast resolution. MR angiography us ing a spiral K-space trajectory has been postu lated to have significant advantages over conventional rectilinear K-space trajectories in this regard [2]. Spiral K-space trajectories were first describedby Likes [3]. The first spi ral images were produced in 1986 [4]. Previ ous studies that applied this technique to imaging the coronary [2J and carotid arteries [5] suggestedthatthetechniqueis intrinsically flow compensated and results in a significant reduction in acquisition time without compro mising image quality. The purpose of this study was to determine how well spiral MR angiography could image the popliteal trifur cation of healthy volunteers compared with conventional MR angiography techniques. The quality of high-resolution cardiac-gated spiral MR angiography obtained in 10 mm was emphasized.