Magnetic resonance angiography and measurement of blood flow in the peripheral vessels.

Peripheral vascular disease has been evaluated using conventional imaging techniques such as contrast angiography to demonstrate the morphology and duplex sonography to evaluate the hemodynamic significance of a stenosis. Two-dimensional time-of-flight (TOF) magnetic resonance angiography (MRA) provides useful anatomic information in both normal and diseased popliteal and tibioperoneal vascular segments, whereas corresponding velocity-encoded cine MR determined velocities and waveforms correlate well with those determined using color-coded sonography and showed excellent interstudy reproducibility. Velocity-encoded cine MR may be useful in assessing the hemodynamic significance of a peripheral vascular stenosis whose severity might be overestimated by using MRA alone. When two-dimensional TOF MRA is combined in a complementary manner with velocity-encoded cine MR, the anatomic information from contrast angiography and the physiologic information from duplex sonography can be obtained during the course of one MR examination.