Novelties in radiology: arterial spin labeling, the gadolinium-free MR perfusion

Arterial spin labeling (ASL) is a recently developed magnetic resonance (MR) technique that assesses cerebral blood flow. This method has been mainly used for investigative purposes with very few centers in the world performing it on a routine clinical basis. ASL has already been validated and proven to be useful in the assessment of a growing number of diseases and conditions. As with any recently established technique, ASL has some limitations that need to be overcome to become more widely used and to be part of the daily routine of the neuroimaging specialist. Currently, four major current ASL techniques are available: pulsed ASL (PASL), continuous ASL (CASL), pseudo-continuous ASL (PCASL) and velocity-selective ASL (VSASL). This article describe these techniques