J. Paul Finn, M.D.

Paul T. Weavers¹, Eric A Borisch¹, Phillip M. Young¹, Phillip J. Rossman¹, Thomas C. Hulshizer¹, and Stephen J. Riederer^1
1Radiology, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota, United States

Real-time fluoroscopic tracking and triggering in stepping table bolus chase CE-MRA has been enabled through advances in receiver coil and parallel imaging technology. This work details advances in anatomy specific receiver arrays designed to support high accelerations as well as optimized patient specific parallel imaging acceleration factors. The two advanced combined allow for increases in the acceleration factor of up to 50%.

Kim-Lien Nguyen^1,2, Fei Han², Daniel Z. Brunengraber², Stanislas Rapacchi², Ihab Ayad^2,3, Gary Satou^2,4, Peng Hu², and J. Paul Finn^2
1Division of Cardiology, Greater Los Angeles VA Healthcare System and David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, Los Angeles, CA, United States,²Diagnostic Cardiovascular Imaging Laboratory, Department of Radiology, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, Los Angeles, CA, United States,³Department of Anesthesiology, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, Los Angeles, CA, Los Angeles, CA, United States, ⁴Division of Pediatric Cardiology, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, Los Angeles, CA, United States

We propose a new paradigm for cardiovascular imaging in congenital heart disease using 4-dimensional, multiphase, steady-state imaging with contrast enhancement (MUSIC) with ferumoxytol.

Ruth P. Lim, MBBS, Mmed, FRANZCR, MS

Jeremy Douglas Collins¹, Edouard Semaan¹, Zoran Stankovic², Riad Salem¹, Maria Carr¹, Michael Markl^1,3, and James Christian Carr^1
1Radiology, Northwestern University, Chicago, IL, United States, ²Radiology, University Hospital, Freiberg, Germany, ³Biomedical Engingeering, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, United States

Chronic renal insufficiency commonly accompanies end-stage liver disease affecting 18-39% of patients. Renal insufficiency adversely impacts the pre-transplant liver vascular assessment, which is necessary to determine suitability for liver transplantation. A comprehensive non-contrast enhanced MRA protocol using a combination of different techniques enables complete assessment of the liver vasculature in the majority of patients. Our study evaluates the performance of a non-contrast MRA protocol for the pre-liver transplant vascular evaluation, using contrast-enhanced MRA as the standard of reference.

Hanwei Chen¹, Na Zhang^2,3, and Xin Liu^2,3
1Department of Radiology, Guangzhou Panyu Central Hospital, Guangzhou, Guangdong, China, ²Lauterbur Research Center for Biomedical Imaging, Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenzhen, Guangdong, China, ³Shenzhen Key Laboratory for MRI, Shenzhen, Guangdong, China

Two non-contrast enhanced magnetic resonance angiography (NCE-MRA) techniques based on steady-state free precession (SSFP), namely flow-sensitive dephasing (FSD) and quiescent-interval single-shot (QISS), have been proposed to achieve higher signal to noise ratio (SNR) of arterial blood and less flow artifacts existed inherently in TSE-based NCE-MRA. The purpose of this study was to compare the image quality and diagnostic accuracy of the FSD and QISS techniques for the detection of lower extremity arterial stenosis in a diabetic patient cohort, using conventional high resolution contrast-enhanced MRA (CE-MRA) as the reference standard.

Pim van Ooij^1,2, Ian G Murphy², Alexander L Powell², Maria Carr², Wouter V Potters¹, Colleen Clennon³, Jeremy D Collins², James C Carr², S Chris Malaisrie⁴, Patrick M McCarthy³, Michael Markl^2,5, and Alex J Barker^2
1Radiology, Academic Medical Center, Amsterdam, Netherlands, ²Radiology, Northwestern University, Chicago, IL, United States, ³Division of Cardiac Surgery, Northwestern University, Chicago, IL, United States, ⁴Medicine-Cardiology, Northwestern University, Chicago, IL, United States, ⁵Northwestern University, Biomedical Engineering, Chicago, IL, United States

Bicuspid valve (BAV) patients are known to express two different types of aortic dilation: 1) with involvement of the root or 2) dilation of the distal aorta. In this 4D flow MRI study, 140 BAV patients are compared with 60 volunteers. With advanced postprocessing techniques (cohort-averaged and P-value maps) it is shown that differences in BAV opening lead to differences in velocity and WSS expression that may be related to the different types of dilation.