Christopher J. Franois1, Mark L. Schiebler1, Scott B. Reeder1, Oliver Wieben2, Reed F. Busse3, Jean H. Brittain3, Thorsten A. Bley1
1Radiology, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, USA; 2Medical Physics, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, USA; 3MR Applied Science Laboratory, GE Healthcare, Madison, WI, USA
This work presents validation of an accelerated, volumetric contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance angiography (CEMRA) technique for evaluating surgically induced renal artery stenosis (RAS) in an animal model. The CEMRA sequence described in this study uses a 2D parallel imaging acceleration method (auto-calibrating reconstruction for Cartesian sampling, ARC) to provide near 4-fold accelerations. As a result, high resolution CEMRA of the entire abdomen can be obtained within a single breath-hold. The results of CEMRA were compared with the gold standard, DSA, and confirm the accuracy of CEMRA with 2D ARC acceleration for grading the severity of RAS.