Comparison of 3D BFFE and 3D TRANCE on pulmonary artery imaging with two T-SLIP placement strategies

3D BFFE and TRANCE can provide a visualization of pulmonary vessels without injection of contrast agent. T-SLIP can observe a large area of vessels using an arterial spin labeling technique. 3D BFFE and TRANCE with two T-SLIP placement strategies were compared on pulmonary artery imaging. Ten male and thirteen female healthy volunteers were recruited in the present study. Each subject underwent non-contrast-enhanced pulmonary MRA. Four protocols were involved in the present study as follows: 3D BFFE with T-SLIP covering vena cava (VC) and right atrium and ventricle (RV), respectively; 3D TRANCE with T-SLIP covering VC and RV, respectively. The SNR were measured at eight ROIs, while CNR were measured at five ROIs. The number of visualized branch and image quality were analyzed by two radiologists. The differences of metrics among different imaging strategies were compared. SNR and CNR were compared between two T-SLIP placement strategies using a paired t-test. The branches number and image quality were compared between two T-SLIP placement strategies using a rank-sum test. The agreement of subjective assessment was conducted using a Kappa test. There were significant differences at all ROIs between TRANCE and BFEE with T-SLIP on RV (all P values <0.01). TRANCE with T-SLIP on RV exhibited a higher CNR at all five ROIs compared with BFFE with T-SLIP on RV. TRANCE with T-SLIP on RV performed better on the number of observed branches and image quality compared with BFFE with T-SLIP on RV. 3D TRANCE with T-SLIP on RV can provide a higher SNR and image quality among four MR protocols, and thus may be a potential non-contrast enhanced technique in the visualization of pulmonary artery.