Accelerated Functional MRI of the Bowel with a 32-Element Coil Array: Detection of Perfusion Defects Using ceMRA and DWI

Introduction Mesenteric ischemia is an acute disease, with fatal outcome in about 70% of the cases (1). Since the interval between the onset of symptoms and irreversible damage of the bowel is app. 120-180 min. (2), there is need for an effective and reliable diagnostic procedure which can detect early changes in the mesenteric perfusion. An early detection of acute mesenteric ischemia (AMI) requires imaging methods which are (i) sensitive to changes in the blood supply or (ii) susceptible to the net water shift associated with the development of cytotoxic edema. For this reason we studied (i) the detection of perfusion deficits in the mesenteric end-arteries using high spatial resolution contrast enhanced MRA and (ii) the detection of cytotoxic edema of the bowel wall by means of diffusion weighted (DWI) imaging. In former experiments (3) we were able to show the technical feasibility of functional MR imaging (fMRI) of the bowel with a 4-channel coil. In this study we are using a 32-channel coil array (i) to reduce image distortion and to enhance image quality in diffusion weighted (DWI) imaging and to further shorten acquisition time for MR-angiography (MRA) with the ultimate goal to improve the detection of AMI.