High acceleration quiescent-interval single shot magnetic resonance angiography at 3T in patients with peripheral artery disease

Background Quiescent-Interval Single Shot (QISS) non-contrast MR angiography (QISS-MRA) is an emerging technique with growing evidence for its use in the evaluation of peripheral artery disease (PAD) at 1.5T [1,2]. The use of 3 Tesla MRI scans is becoming more common in clinical practice and offers the main advantage of roughly double the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) than that of 1.5 Tesla MRI. Improvements in B1 field inhomogeneity along with fast (parallel) imaging make QISS-MRA a viable technique on state-of-the-art 3T scanners. A prior study from this group investigated the potential to accelerate imaging at 3T using higher parallel imaging acceleration (PAT) factors on healthy volunteers [3]. With this technique optimized, we report preliminary results in clinical patients. The objective of this study is to evaluate the diagnostic quality of QISS at 3T in patients with PAD using contrast-enhanced MR angiography (CE-MRA) as the reference standard.