Gadofosveset Trisodium-Enhanced Steady State Free Precession Magnetic Resonance Angiography of Left Atrium and Pulmonary Veins

Purpose: Pulmonary vein isolation by means of catheter ablation is a new therapeutic modality for patients with symptomatic atrial fibrillation. Due to the complex anatomy preprocedual imaging of left atrium and pulmonary veins is helpful for planning catheter intervention. With the advent of electrocardiogram-gated and respiratory-gated 3D steady state free precession (SSFP) sequences covering the entire heart (wholeheart MR angiography, MRA) it has become possible to visualize cardiac vascular anatomy with high spatial resolution [1]. However, native whole-heart MRA was only of limited value for depiction of left atrium and pulmonary veins [2]. Intravascular contrast media with their uniform and prolonged enhancement of the blood pool appear to be well applicable for whole-heart MRA. The hypothesis for this study was that the intravascular contrast agent gadofosveset trisodium significantly improves image quality of whole-heart MRA and hereby allows high resolution MRA of left atrium and pulmonary veins.