RESUMO
Purpose To assess the clinical application of non-contrast-enhanced MR angiography (NCE-MRA) using flow sensitive dephasing (FSD) prepared steady-state free precession (SSFP) for displaying hand arteries of patients with rheumatoid arthritis. Materials and Methods Twenty-two patients with rheumatoid arthritis were recruited in this study. All the patients undertook hand NCE-MRA and three-dimensional dynamic CE-MRA on a 1.5T MR scanner. The informed consent was obtained from each subject. Image quality was assessed independently by two experienced radiologists at three arterial segments (wrist arteries, palm arteries, andfinger arteries) with a four-point scale. Signal to noise ratio (SNR), contrast to noise ratio (CNR), and vessel sharpness were evaluated by a magnetic resonance physicist. The results and image quality were statistically compared between the two MRA techniques.Results Twenty-two patients of 24 hands successfully underwent NCE-MRA and CE-MRA scan. Among 72 vascular segments, 69 segments of NCE-MRA were diagnostic, which was higher than that of CE-MRA (96% vs 83%,P<0.05). Otherwise, the image quality, SNR, CNR and vessel sharpness of NCE-MRA were all superior to those of CE-MRA (P<0.05).Conclusion NCE-MRA using FSD-prepared SSFP allows clear depiction of the hand arterial tree, and the image quality is superior to that of dynamic CE-MRA. It is a potential tool for evaluating the disease of hand arteries.