DETECTION OF CORONARY STENOSES ON SOURCE AND PROJECTION IMAGES USING 3-DIMENSIONAL MR-ANGIOGRAPHY WITH RETROSPECTIVE RESPIRATORY GATING - PRELIMINARY EXPERIENCE

OBJECTIVE. Our objective was to study the ability of three-dimensional MR angiography with retrospective respiratory gating to reveal stenos es in proximal coronary arteries on source and projection images. CONC LUSION. Proximal coronary artery stenoses can be identified using thre e-dimensional MR angiography with retrospective respiratory gating, bo th with projection images and on source images alone. Reasons for miss ed lesions included collateral vessels and retrograde flow distal to c omplete occlusion and volume averaging of vessels with adjacent struct ures, Causes of false-positive interpretations included small foci of decreased signal intensity distal to complete occlusion, partial volum e effects on individual partitions, and regions of distal vessels leav ing the imaging plane.