Dynamic Contrast-Enhanced MR Angiography and MR Imaging of the Carotid Artery: High-Resolution Sequences in Different Acquisition Planes

the technique of choice for studying the carotid bifurcation, but this method has some limita-tions. We evaluated the clinical utility of performing 3D contrast-enhanced MR angiography in the axial plane immediately after performing angiography in the coronal plane. METHODS: Cervical carotid arteries of 80 consecutive patients were studied on a 1.5-T MR imager with phased-array coils. Coronal 3D MR angiography was performed after adminis-tering a bolus injection of contrast material (20 mL) with automatic triggering. This was im-mediately followed by an axial acquisition. We measured carotid diameters on the contrast-enhanced MR angiograms as well as on intra-arterial digital subtraction angiograms according to established criteria. We also evaluated original source MR angiograms. RESULTS: Angiograms obtained in the axial plane correlated better with the intra-arterial digital subtraction angiograms than did the coronal angiograms. When first-pass contrast-enhanced MR angiography was incomplete because of a failure of triggering, the second-phase acquisition provided sufficient image quality. Original source images suffered from ring arti-facts, low axial resolution, and a low level of soft-tissue visualization. Axial-based source images showed flow-independent contrast filling to the patent lumen with sufficient visualization o