Evaluation of a Non-Contrast-Enhanced MR Angiography Method in PVD Patients and Comparison with TRICKS

Andrew Nicholas Priest¹, Ilse Joubert¹, Teik Choon See¹, Andrew Philip Winterbottom¹, Martin John Graves¹, David John Lomas¹

This study assesses the diagnostic performance of VANESSA, a new non-contrast-enhanced MRA technique, in patients with peripheral vascular disease, by comparison with our standard clinical contrast-enhanced protocol using TRICKS. The lower legs of 34 patients were imaged using both techniques, and two reviewers evaluated eight arterial segments for each dataset. The specificity and sensitivity for detection of significant disease (stenosis > 50%) were 75.6% and 91.4% when evaluated per segment, 89.7% and 72.7% when evaluated per limb and 97.6% and 44.4% when evaluated per patient. This method could be used to select patients for further investigation, reducing unnecessary Gadolinium administration.