Assessment of the anomalous pulmonary circulation by dynamic contrast-enhanced MR angiography in under four seconds

The purpose of this study was to demonstrate the initial results of the dynamic contrast-enhanced MRA in under four seconds in the assessment of anomalous pulmonary circulation. We performed dynamic contrast enhanced MRA on ten patients with a temporal resolution of 2-3 sec for each phase. Five patients had pulmonary vascular anomaly and five patients had reconstructed pulmonary circulation. On nine patients catheter angiography was performed for the correlation. Dynamic contrast-enhanced MRA successfully demonstrated congenital pulmonary vascular anomalies and the pathway of anomalous pulmonary circulation in our series. With the improved temporal and spatial resolution, the dynamic contrast-enhanced MRA can be used in children and infants for the assessment of congenital vascular disease. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.