Ultrashort T-E time-of-flight MR angiography improves the follow-up of intracranial aneurysms treated with Guglielmi detachable coils (GDC)

We evaluated the ability of a three dimensional time-of-flight magnetic resonance angiography (3-D TOF MRA) with ultrashort echo times (T-E) to increase tile detectability of adjacent cerebral arteries and of the perfusional state of cerebral aneurysms (CAs) treated with Guglielmi detachable coils (GDC) by reducing the coil induced susceptibility artifact. 14 patients with 15 GDC-treated CAs underwent 18 comparative measurements of conventional MRA, ultrashort T-E MRA, and digital subtraction angiography (DSA) as the standard of reference. The ultrashort T-E MRA significantly reduced the susceptibility artifact as compared to conventional MRA. This lead to improved assessment of adjacent vessels in five out of 14 (35.7%) patients. Five CAs were incompletely occluded on the DSA. Both MRA techniques showed the same results as the DSA. Accidentally, the method detected flow in the intracranial ICA trunk (Cl segment) in a patient with a clipped CA of this segment. In conclusion, we can recommend the new MRA method in the follow-up routine of GDC treated CAs. There might be an additional potential to evaluate clipped CAs requiring further study. Copyright 1997 by Manduzzi Editore S.p.A. - Bologna (Italy).