High-resolution magnetic resonance angiography of hands with timed arterial compression (tac-MRA).

Timed arterial compression (tac) of blood flow can be achieved by inflation of a blood-pressure cuff. We postulated that this technique might improve contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance angiography (MRA) of the arteries of the hands. We studied eight volunteers and six patients with occlusive arterial disease of the hands with standard MRA and tac-MRA. Compared with standard MRA, acquisition time was extended with the blood-pressure cuff by a factor of four, leading to quadrupled image resolution (512x1024). Furthermore, flow-related artifacts were not seen. Tac-MRA permits visualisation of the peripheral arterial system in finer detail than that achieved with standard MRA.