Non-Invasive Planning of Endovascular Procedures in Patients with Peripheral Arterial Occlusive Disease: Value of 125 m Spatial Resolution Steady State MRA with a Blood Pool Contrast Agent

Winfried Albert Willinek¹, Jack Boschewitz¹, Dariusch Reza Hadizadeh¹, Guido Matthias Kukuk¹, Ute L. Fahlenkamp¹, Jrgen Gieseke¹, ², Carsten Meyer¹, Kai Wilhelm¹

Steady state MRA (SSMRA) with blood pool contrast agents (BPCA) overcomes the limited spatial resolution in first pass imaging by offering a prolonged time window that allows for increased spatial resolution with improved sensitivity and specificity of stenosis grading in patients with peripheral arterial occlusive disease (PAOD). We investigated the usefulness of 125 m spatial resolution SSMRA for non-invasive planning of endovascular procedures in critical limb ischemia (PAOD III-IV). 125 m spatial resolution SSMRA improved the pre-interventional planning of endovascular procedures by allowing to correctly predict stent size and location of the intervention and, thus may influence therapeutic decision making.