Pre-Interventional Assessment of a Vertebrobasilar Aneurysm with 7 Tesla Time-of-Flight MR Angiography

Introduction

According to autopsy studies the prevalence of intracranial aneurysms ranges from 0.4 to 6 %. Subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH), in 80 % caused by rupture of an intracranial aneurysm, is responsible for about 25 % of all deaths related to cerebrovascular disease. Digital subtraction angiography (DSA) is currently standard in pre-treatment detection of intracranial aneurysms, because computed tomographic angiography (CTA) and magnetic resonance angiography (MRA) can miss small lesions (< 3 mm). The implementation of 7 T whole-body scanners for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of humans allows the examination of intracranial vasculature with higher spatial resolution due to an increased signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). We describe a patient with an angiographically confirmed vertebrobasilar aneurysm evaluated by 7 T TOF MRA and discuss advantages of this technique in comparison to 1.5 T TOF MRA.