Jun Isogai1, Mitsue Miyazaki2, Takeshi Shimada1, Hideo Hatakeyama1, Takashi Yamada1, Masashi Takeuchi1, Shizuaki Maejima1, Kenji Yodo3, Tomoko Miyata3
1Hasuda Hospital, Hasuda, Saitama, Japan; 2Toshiba Medical Research Institute USA, IL, USA; 3Toshiba Medical Systems Corporation, Saitama, Japan
Visualization of the proximal femur arteries is quite difficult using conventional nonenhanced MR angiography such as time-of-flight due to tortuous arterial trees and small vessels in the bone marrow. Gadolinium-enhanced MRA also has several problems with injection rates, the amount of contrast material, and the separation of arteries from veins. Due to the recent concerns of Gadolinium-related Nephrogenic Systemic Fibrosis (NSF), nonenhanced MRA solutions have gained interest. Visualization of small arteries of the proximal femur was investigated using time-spatial labeling inversion pulse (time-SLIP) with balanced steady-state free precession (bSSFP).