Improved mufti-station peripheral MR angiography with a dedicated vascularcoil

Delineation of small branch vessels can be crucial for assessing the periph eral arterial system of patients requiring surgical grafting. Thus signal-t o-noise needs to be maximized. We evaluated the performance of a dedicated peripheral vascular coil In four subjects by comparing It to the body coil using DSA as the standard of reference. SNR and CNR values of the dedicated peripheral coil exceeded those obtained with the body coil by a mean of 39 8%, thus permitting improved delineation of the Infrapopliteal arterial mor phology. (C) 2001 Wiley-Liss, Inc.