Comparison of gated and non-gated fast multislice black-blood carotid imaging using rapid extended coverage and inflow/outflow saturation techniques.

Purpose: To comparatively analyze two fast in vivo multislice black-blood carotid artery vessel wall imaging techniques with and without cardiac gating.

Materials And Methods: Eight subjects with carotid artery atherosclerosis, and four healthy subjects were studied using two black-blood multislice techniques: rapid extended coverage double inversion recovery (REX-DIR), and inflow/outflow saturation band (IOSB) rapid acquisition with relaxation enhancement (RARE) multislice acquisitions. Quantitative, qualitative, and morphometric analyses were performed on images.