Koji Fujimoto1,
Aki Kido2, Kyoko Takakura2, Hajime Sagawa2,
Shigeaki Umeoka2, Naotaka Sakashita3, Tokunori Kimura3,
Yasutaka Fushimi2, Kaori Togashi2
1Department
of Diagnostic Imaging and Nuclear Medicine, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan; 2Department
of Diagnostic Imaging and Nuclear Medicine, Kyoto University Graduate School
of Medicine, Kyoto, Japan; 3Toshiba Medical Systems Corporation,
Otawara, Tochigi, Japan
Because of the higher risk for NSF, there is an increased requirement to non-invasively evaluate the function of the diseased kidneys. We investigated feasibility of 3D-bSSFP MRA for the kidney by comparing with FFE readout. 3D-ASTAR-ASL was performed for five healthy volunteers at Toshiba 3.0T MRI system. Inversion time (TI) between the saturation pulse and readout varied from 800, 1200, 1600, 2000, 2400 msec. bSSFP was superior to FFE both for quantitative analysis (contrast ratio of the kidney/vertebra, and intestines/vertebra) and qualitative analysis (visualization of the renal perfusion, effectiveness of background suppression, and degree of misregistration) at any TI.
Keywords