Improved MR venography: use of fast short inversion time inversion-recovery technique in evaluation of venous angiomas.

Eleven patients (five female and six male, aged 6-67 years) with venous angiomas underwent axial and coronal T1-weighted and fast short inversion time inversion-recovery (STIR) magnetic resonance (MR) imaging to assess the full extent of the malformations. Images were assessed subjectively by the authors in a nonblinded study. In all patients, fast STIR images depicted more anatomic detail than did T1-weighted images and depicted venous angiomas more clearly than did contrast material-enhanced CT scans but did not help discrimination of arteries and veins.