Visualization of Lenticulostriate Arteries on High-Resolution Magnetic Resonance Imaging and Digital Subtraction Angiography

Morphological characteristics of lenticulostriate arteries (LSAs) have important clinical significance. TOF MRA and intracranial vessel wall imaging (VWI) are powerful noninvasive vascular imaging techniques routinely used in vascular visualization. However, due to the small caliber of LSAs, it is difficult for conventional 3T TOF MRA to achieve the visualization of LSAs. High-resolution magnetic resonance imaging based on compressed sensing (CS) technology is expected to solve this dilemma. DSA is the gold standard for vascular visualization. This study proposes an optimized high-resolution TOF MRA scanning scheme based on CS technology and shows its feasibility in LSA visualization by comparing with DSA.