[MR angiography and MR cholangiopancreatography]

MR angiography is an adjunctive for noninvasive evaluation of blood vessels and MR cholangiopancreatography is for bile duct and pancreatic duct. Clinical applications of MR angiography has been focused mainly on head and neck and its applications to the abdomen are still limited. However, this technique has the good potential for the evaluation of portal vein system. MR cholangiopancreatography can depict bile ducts and pancreatic duct simultaneously and three-dimensionally. This technique can evaluate the causes of the lesion and its extent noninvasively. In this article the practical uses of MR angiography and MR cholangiography in the abdomen are discussed.

MR angiography of renal cell carcinoma

Seventeen patients with renal cell carcinoma were studied to evaluate the usefulness of gradient echo (fast low-angle shot), time-of-flight magnetic resonance (MR) angiography under breath-holding. By reconstruction of the data of consecutive coronal scans of the abdomen, in all 17 patients with renal cell carcinoma, MR angiography can delineate the abdominal aorta, inferior vena cava and renal arteries and veins simultaneously without any contrast materials. Our present study suggested that MR angiography is a useful imaging method for preoperatively assessing spacial vascular structures of the abdomen of patients with renal cell carcinoma.

Biliary obstruction: evaluation with three-dimensional MR cholangiography

Three-dimensional (3D) magnetic resonance (MR) projection imaging was evaluated as a noninvasive alternative to direct cholangiography in 12 patients with malignancy-related obstructive jaundice. The 3D images of the bile ducts were formed by subjecting consecutive coronal MR images obtained with a fast imaging method to a maximum-intensity projection algorithm. Dilatation and obstruction of the biliary system were well documented in all cases, and good correlation between findings at 3D MR cholangiography and percutaneous transhepatic biliary drainage performed 0-21 days later was observed.