Multislice breath‐hold spiral magnetic resonance coronary angiography in patients with coronary artery disease: Effect of intravascular contrast medium

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Abstract
Purpose: First, to apply a breath‐hold multislice 2D spiral magnetic resonance (MR) approach in patients acquiring within 16 heartbeats (acquisition window, 116 msec) a 10‐mm‐thick stack of four slices (resolution, 1.3 × 1.3 mm2); and second, to evaluate the effect of an intravascular Fe‐based contrast medium (CM) on a signal‐to‐noise ratio (SNR) and a contrast‐to‐noise ratio (CNR).Materials and Methods: In each patient one or two coronary arteries were imaged prior to and following cumulative doses of 0.25, 0.5, and 0.75 mg of Fe/kg of body weight (bw) of an intravascular CM (CLARISCAN™, Nycomed‐Amersham, Princeton, NJ, USA) containing ultrasmall superparamagnetic iron oxide (USPIO) particles.Results: On precontrast maximum intensity projection (MIP) images generated from the stack of slices, 10 and 11 stenoses of 12 stenoses confirmed by coronary angiography were detected by readers 1 and 2, respectively. SNR and CNR in the coronary arteries peaked at 0.50 mg of Fe/kg of bw, yielding a slight increase of 15.5% and 18.4%, respectively (P < 0.05 vs. precontrast), which did not improve detection of coronary artery stenoses.Conclusion: The presented multislice spiral approach allows display of coronary anatomy in MIP formats for convenient display of coronary stenoses. The pulse sequence did not benefit from an intravascular USPIO‐based CM, since little improvement in SNR and CNR was achieved. J. Magn. Reson. Imaging 2002;16:660–667.