1. Dynamic Gd-DTPA-Enhanced MR Imaging of the Kidney: Comparison between T1 – and T2*-Weighted Sequences
- Author
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Pekka Niemi, Yoshito Tsushima, Martti Kormano, Peter B. Dean, Markka Komu, and Arto Haapanen
- Subjects
Adult ,Gadolinium DTPA ,Male ,Contrast Media ,Gadolinium ,Kidney ,Renal Circulation ,Organometallic Compounds ,Humans ,Medicine ,business.industry ,Middle Aged ,Pentetic Acid ,Image Enhancement ,Magnetic Resonance Imaging ,Mr imaging ,medicine.anatomical_structure ,Nephrology ,Renal physiology ,Renal blood flow ,Female ,business ,Nuclear medicine ,T2 weighted - Abstract
To determine whether T1- or T2-weighted sequences are more informative and practical in dynamic Gd-DTPA-enhanced MR imaging for the evaluation of renal blood flow and function.Dynamic Gd-DTPA-enhanced MR imaging of the kidney was performed in 7 patients by either T1-weighted TurboFLASH (TR/TE/TI/FA = 9/4/27/8) or T2-weighted FLASH (TR/TE/FA = 32/22/10) sequences for comparison of the enhancement pattern. None of the subjects had a suspicion of renal dysfunction from laboratory data, and the absence of renal artery stenosis was confirmed by conventional angiography.During the early phase, the marked signal increase in T1-weighted imaging in the renal cortex corresponded to a similar marked decrease in signal intensity in T2-weighted imaging. During the middle and late phases, the medulla was dramatically decreased in intensity on the T2-weighted imaging resulting in a good contrast between the cortex and medulla.Both sequences may provide almost similar information about the renal cortical blood flow. However, T2-weighted dynamic MR imaging may be more informative than T1-weighted dynamic MR imaging about the concentrating ability in the renal medulla. A high concentration of Gd-DTPA in the tubular structure was suspected to cause a dramatic decrease in intensity in the medulla in T2-weighted imaging.
- Published
- 1996
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