MR angiography with oblique gradient-recalled echo technique.

Magnetic resonance (MR) angiography with use of an oblique gradient-recalled echo sequence is discussed. The technique was developed for the efficient acquisition of angiographic data when the desired projection direction is already known. The raw data set is acquired directly at the projection angle; thus, a high-resolution projection is created, despite a decrease in the number of phase-encoding views acquired per axial image. Excessive reduction in the number of views acquired causes a loss of contrast in the projection images rather than a loss of resolution. High-resolution, high-contrast MR projection angiograms can be obtained in 2 1/2 minutes, with 50 3-mm sections and 48 phase encodings per section, a repetition time of 50 msec, an echo time of 15 msec, and a flip angle of 45 degrees. This represents one-fifth the time required for a conventional angiographic image. Venous blood is successfully saturated when the saturation band is placed at a fixed distance from the current imaging section. The method is demonstrated in the imaging of the carotid bifurcation in healthy volunteers and of a patient who had undergone carotid endarterectomy.