Clinical intra-arterial digital subtraction imaging. Use of small volumes of iodinated contrast material or carbon dioxide.

Forty patients were examined with intra-arterial digital subtraction angiography (DSA) using meglumine iothalamate (202 mg iodine/ml) or CO2 as a contrast medium. Diagnostic studies were obtained in all patients. The use of CO2 resulted in diagnostic examinations of the common femoral artery to the level of the trifurcation. The use of CO2 and low-iodine-content contrast material reduced the iodine dosage, and temporal bandpass filtration DSA permitted a lower entrance exposure than pulsed systems. It is concluded that intra-arterial DSA, using the techniques described in this paper, will become a more important and widely used procedure than it currently is.