Clinical feasibility of ultrafast intracranial vessel imaging with non-Cartesian spiral 3D time-of-flight MR angiography at 1.5T: An intra-individual comparison study

OBJECTIVES: Non-Cartesian Spiral readout can be implemented in 3D Time-of-flight (TOF) MR angiography (MRA) with short acquisition times. In this intra-individual comparison study we evaluated the clinical feasibility of Spiral TOF MRA in comparison with compressed sensing accelerated TOF MRA at 1.5T for intracranial vessel imaging as it has yet to be determined. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Forty-four consecutive patients with suspected intracranial vascular disease were imaged with two Spiral 3D TOFs (Spiral, 0.82x0.82x1.2 mm(3), 01:32 min; Spiral 0.8, 0.8x0.8x0.8 mm(3,) 02:12 min) and a Compressed SENSE accelerated 3D TOF (CS 3.5, 0.82x0.82x1.2 mm(3), 03:06 min) at 1.5T. Two neuroradiologists assessed qualitative (visualization of central and peripheral vessels) and quantitative image quality (Contrast Ratio, CR) and performed lesion and variation assessment for all three TOFs in each patient. After the rating process, the readers were questioned and representative cases were reinspected in a non-blinded fashion. For statistical analysis, the Friedman and Nemenyi post-hoc test, Kendall W tests, repeated measure ANOVA and weighted Cohen's Kappa tests were used. RESULTS: The Spiral and Spiral 0.8 outperformed the CS 3.5 in terms of peripheral image quality (p<0.001) and performed equally well in terms of central image quality (p>0.05). The readers noted slight differences in the appearance of maximum intensity projection images. A good to high degree of interstudy agreement between the three TOFs was observed for lesion and variation assessment (W = 0.638, p<0.001 –W = 1, p<0.001). CR values did not differ significantly between the three TOFs (p = 0.534). Interreader agreement ranged from good (K = 0.638) to excellent (K = 1). CONCLUSIONS: Compared to the CS 3.5, both the Spiral and Spiral 0.8 exhibited comparable or better image quality and comparable diagnostic performance at much shorter acquisition times.