The clinical application of magnetic resonance angiography in diagnosing intracranial aneurysms / 介入放射学杂志

ABSTRACT

Although digital subtraction angiography (DSA) has been used as the gold standard for the diagnosis of intracranial aneurysms, its clinical use is somewhat limited by its invasiveness, high medical cost and potential risk of nephrotoxicity. For the past three decades, the magnetic resonance angiography (MRA) techniques have been developed rapidly. As a non-invasive technique with high resolution ability, MRA can replace DSA for the diagnosis of intracranial aneurysms in most clinical situations. The time-of-flight MRA (TOF-MRA) carries a diagnostic sensitivity of up to 98.2%-98.7%for tiny intracranial aneurysms ( 5 mm) reaches as high as 100%. All the above mentioned MRA techniques can clearly display the intracranial aneurysms although their imaging characteristics and clinical applications are different from each other. This paper aims to make a brief review concerning the principles, clinical applications and recent progress of some MRA techniques.