mrv

kl812 · Joined: 18 Jun 2008 Posts: 2 Location: ky

i did my first mrv today from below knee to the crest of the pelvis. it came out horrible. i used the prescribed 2dtof spgr sequence and ran slices from bottom to top and used superior sat. the system is a 1.5t ge hde. the study was without contrast. the images were very choppy the reconstructed vessels were skippy bright-dark-bright-dark etc. the images resembeled even echo rephasing. i tried several other sequences also with the same results including 2d gre. the system does not have TRICKS. any sugestions for smooth and solid bright vessel images?

MRI_Guy · Joined: 02 Nov 2008 Posts: 3

Let me be clear that I have never attempted such a scan... But here's my suggestion.

I think you're going to need to give contrast to get it done, and that's going to mean a foot injection with the power injector. It's also going to mean that it's a unilateral study, only one leg, not both. You're not going to need a fast injection. 30ml @ 1ml/sec should do the trick. I would recommend using the same sequence you use to scan carotids with a larger FOV of course. in the coronal plane to minimize scan time. Start the injection and start the scan about 5 seconds later. As long as your scan time is less than 45 seconds or so, you should be okay. You probably won't get deep venous circulation on the resulting images, but just the femoral vein for the most part. Even though it's a unilateral scan, you may want to center your FOV at zero R to L to help prevent phase wrap. The frequency direction should be S/I.

Run this by your radiologist before you go for it. I've done plenty of brain MRVs, but never an extremity.
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MRI_Guy