Dimitris Mitsouras1,2, Christopher D. Owens3, Michael S. Conte3, Hale Ersoy1,2, Mark A. Creager2,4, Frank J. Rybicki1,2, Robert V. Mulkern2,5
1Radiology, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, MA, USA; 2Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA; 3Surgery, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, MA, USA; 4Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, MA, USA; 5Radiology, Children's Hospital, Boston, MA, USA
Despite its clinical importance, intermediate-term vein bypass graft failure (30-50% of grafts) remains largely uncharacterized due to the resolution required to image the graft wall. Using a high-sampling efficiency inner-volume 3DFSE sequence that achieves T1- and T2-weighted black-blood imaging with 0.3x0.3x2mm uninterpolated resolution at 1.5T in under 10min, we observed a significant difference in vessel wall area between contrasts in lower extremity vein bypass grafts (LEVBG) in vivo, and show that the difference stems from the intrinsic MR signal decay characteristics of the neo-intima/media and adventitia measured in LEVBG specimens ex vivo and correlated to histology.