Image quality in intravenous renal DSA. A critical analysis of 300 examinations.

Renal venous DSA yields diagnostically adequate results in an unselected population in more than 85% of cases. Image quality is compromised predominantly by inadequate contrast enhancement, motion artifacts from the stomach and the bowel, and obesity. The effect of these factors increases with patient age. Selection of patients, careful bowel preparation, the use of a compression device and intravenous spasmolytics are recommended to improve image quality. The possible contributions of the injection technique, pulsed DSA and advanced post-processing facilities are discussed.