Abstract #2683

MRI of peripheral vascular calcifications using stack-of-stars 3D FLASH

Marcos Paulo Botelho¹, Shivraman Giri², Ioannis Koktzoglou^1,3, Alto Stemmer⁴, and Robert R. Edelman^1,5

¹Radiology, NorthShore University HealthSystem, Evanston, IL, United States, ²Siemens Healthcare, Chicago, IL, United States, ³Radiology, University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine, Chicago, IL, United States, ⁴Siemens Healthcare GmbH, Erlangen, Germany, ⁵Radiology, Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern Univesity, Chicago, IL, United States

We evaluated a novel approach for visualizing and quantifying peripheral arterial calcifications using a stack-of-stars 3D FLASH pulse sequence. The technique permitted isotropic 1mm3 spatial resolution and displayed dark calcifications against a relatively uniform bright background. Banding artifacts relating to chemical shift were minimized by the use of radial in-plane spatial encoding and an in-phase echo time, while vascular signal was enhanced by the use of a low flip angle near the Ernst angle of blood. In patients with peripheral arterial disease, there was excellent correlation using CT angiography as the standard of reference.

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