Nonenhanced MR Angiography of the Femoral Head Using Time-SLIP

Jun Isogai¹, Mitsue Miyazaki², Takeshi Shimada¹, Hideo Hatakeyama¹, Takashi Yamada¹, Masashi Takeuchi¹, Shizuaki Maejima¹, Kenji Yodo³, Tomoko Miyata³

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).