Magnetic resonance angiography of the head and neck: A teaching file. Jeffrey S Ross, MD. Mosby-Year Bk., St. Louis, 1995, $95.00, pp. 421; 822 illustrations
✍ Scribed by Rakesh Shah MD
- Book ID
- 102373119
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 1997
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 120 KB
- Volume
- 7
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 1053-1807
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
The impact of MR angiography (MRA) is tremendous, allowing the noninvasive imaging of a wide variety of cerebrovascular abnormalities. It has become almost routine to the clinician, who thinks nothing more than writing it on the requisition. However, the physics behind MRA and the interpretation of MRA can be very difficult indeed.
Written by one of the pioneers of MRA, the books stated purpose is to "try to help in that learning process of MRA by providing a variety of case material in a straightforward manner, with appropriate references and discussion of pathologic processes." The book fulfills its stated purpose admirably, with chapters divided into basic principles, techniques, normal MRA anatomy and variants, and various pathologic entities, including the most commonly imaged disease processes, such as aneurysms, vascular malformations, dissection, carotid bifurcation and intracranial stenoses, and venous disease. A standard format is followed, with the beginning of each chapter, except for the first two chapters, containing a succinct description of specific MRA techniques relevant to the particular disease process or region being imaged and then the remainder of the chapter consisting of cases. Each case begins with a short paragraph on the MRA technique used.
The book is organized into 10 chapters. The first chapter is devoted to an introduction to the basic principles of MRA. Although written rather simplistically, it does, in its 11 pages, introduce the general concepts of time of flight [TOF) and phase-contrast MRA, with several line diagrams and schematics provided. Two-dimensional (2D) and three-dimensional (3D) techniques are introduced. A nice chart at the end of the chapter offers advantages and disadvantages to changing different aspects of sequence parameters, ie. small voxel size, short echo time, high flip angle, long repetition time, etc.
The second chapter delves into specific MRA techniques and provides good explanations of saturation pulses, ramp pulses, maximum intensity projection, multiple overlapping thin-slab acquisition for reduction of venetian blind artifact, and various background suppression techniques, such as magnetization transfer background suppression and frequency-selective fat suppression. Again, a chart at the end of the chapter provides advantages, disadvantages, and common uses of major techniques, ie, 2D and 3D TOF,