IMMEDIATE POSTGADOLINIUM SPOILED GRADIENT-ECHO MRI FOR EVALUATING THEABDOMINAL-AORTA IN THE SETTING OF ABDOMINAL MR EXAMINATION

To assess the reproducibility and image quality of immediate postgadol inium chelate spoiled gradient-echo MRI in demonstrating disease of th e abdominal aorta. All patients (27 patients: 21 men, 6 women) with su bstantial disease of the abdominal aorta, who underwent abdominal MR e xaminations at 1.5 T between 1991 and 1995, were entered in the study. Patients were referred for evaluation of suspected aortic disease (14 patients) or other abdominal diseases (13 patients), Three experience d investigators manually measured luminal and external aortic wall dia meters and rated image quality, definition of inner and outer walls, e xtent of disease, and presence of other abdominal abnormalities, in an independent fashion. A cardiovascular surgeon then rated all studies to determine whether clinical management could be based on the MR find ings alone, There was 98 to 99% agreement in measurements of luminal a nd external wall diameter between the three investigators, overall ima ge quality was rated as good in 77.8 to 88.9% of patients, A total of 31 additional nonaortic abdominal abnormalities were detected by all o bservers. The cardiovascular surgeon rated 25 of 27 studies as adequat e to determine clinical management based on MR findings alone, immedia te postgadolinium spoiled gradient-echo MRI is a reproducible techniqu e for the demonstration of abdominal aortic disease and possesses good image quality, Advantages of this technique include simultaneous eval uation of other nonvascular diseases of the abdomen, short examination time, and easy implementation as part of routine abdominal MRI scanni ng protocol.