Vessel encoded arterial spin labeling with cerebral perfusion: preliminary study / 中华放射学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To evaluate a noninvasive vessel encoded imaging for selective mapping of the flow territories of the left and right internal carotid arteries and vertebral-basilar arteries. Methods Seven volunteers [(33.5±4.1) years ; 3 men, 4 women] and 6 patients [(55.2 ± 3.2) years; 2 men,4women] were given written informed consent approved by the institutional review board before participating in the study. A pseudo-continuous tagging pulse train is modified to encode all vessels of interest. The selectivity of this method was demonstrated. Regional perfusion imaging was developed on the same arterial spin labeling sequence. Perfusion-weighted images of the selectively labeled cerebral arteries were obtained by subtraction of the labeled from control images. The CBF values of hemisphere, white matter, and gray matter of volunteers were calculated. The vessel territories on patients were compared with DSA. The low perfusion areas were compared with high signal areas on T2-FLAIR. Results High SNR maps of left carotid, right carotid, and basilar territories were generated in 8 minutes of scan time. Cerebral blood flow 100 g-1 were in agreement with data in the literature. Vessel encoded imaging in patients had a good agreement with DSA. The low perfusion areas were larger than high signal areas on T2-FLAIR. Conclusion We present a new method capable of evaluating both quantitatively and qualitatively the individual brain-feeding arteries in vivo.