Fetal-placental MR angiography at 1.5 T and 3 T.

OBJECTIVES: The objective of this work was to investigate the application of 2D Time-of-Flight (TOF) magnetic resonance angiography (MRA) to observe the placental vasculature at both 1.5 T and 3 T.

METHODS: Fifteen appropriate for gestational age (AGA) (GA: 29.7 ± 3.4 weeks; GA range: 23 and 6/7 weeks to 36 and 2/7 weeks) and eleven patients with an abnormal singleton pregnancy (GA: 31.4 ± 4.4 weeks; GA range: 24 weeks to 35 and 2/7 weeks) were recruited in the study. Three AGA patients were scanned twice at different gestational ages. Patients were scanned either at 3 T or 1.5 T using both T2 -HASTE and 2D TOF to image the entire placental vasculature.

RESULTS: The umbilical, chorionic vessels, stem vessels, arcuate arteries, radial arteries, and spiral arteries were shown in most of the subjects. Hyrtl's anastomosis was found in two subjects in the 1.5 T data. The uterine arteries were observed in more than half of the subjects. For those patients scanned twice, the same spiral arteries were identified in both scans.

CONCLUSIONS: 2D TOF is a technique that can be applied in studying the fetal-placental vasculature at both 1.5 T and 3 T.