3D-black-blood 3T-MRI for the diagnosis of thoracic large vessel vasculitis: A feasibility study

Objectives To evaluate the feasibility of T1w-3D black-blood turbo spin echo (TSE) sequence with variable flip angles for the diagnosis of thoracic large vessel vasculitis (LVV). Methods Thirty-five patients with LVV, diagnosed according to the current standard of reference, and 35 controls were imaged at 3.0T using 1.2 × 1.3 × 2.0 mm 3 fat-suppressed, T1w-3D, modified Volumetric Isotropic TSE Acquisition (mVISTA) pre- and post-contrast. Applying a navigator and peripheral pulse unit triggering (PPU), the total scan time was 10–12 min. Thoracic aorta and subclavian and pulmonary arteries were evaluated for image quality (IQ), flow artefact intensity, diagnostic confidence, concentric wall thickening and contrast enhancement (CWT, CCE) using a 4-point scale. Results IQ was good in all examinations (3.25 ± 0.72) and good to excellent in 342 of 408 evaluated segments (83.8 %), while 84.1 % showed no or minor flow artefacts. The interobserver reproducibility for the identification of CCE and CWT was 0.969 and 0.971 (p