COMPARISON OF MAGNETIC-RESONANCE ANGIOGRAPHY WITH CONVENTIONAL ANGIOGRAPHY IN THE DETECTION OF INTRACRANIAL ANEURYSMS IN PATIENTS PRESENTING WITH SUBARACHNOID HEMORRHAGE

Thirty-nine patients admitted with proven subarachnoid haemorrhage mer e imaged both with 3-D time of flight (TOF) magnetic resonance angiogr aphy (MRA) and conventional angiography. As the definitive examination , catheter angiography demonstrated 37 aneurysms; ten patients had no aneurysm, the remaining 29 patients had 37 aneurysms, We found the sen sitivity of 3-D TOF MRA for the detection of aneurysms to be 81% and s pecificity to be 100% when the reporting radiologist inspects not only the MIP reconstructions but also the MRA source data and the axial sp in-echo images, The investigation is less accurate if all the availabl e imaging data is not considered.