Clinical experience with MR imaging in the diagnosis of deep venous thrombosis of extremities

Seventy-eight patients referred to radiology for evaluation of suspected extremity deep venous thrombosis were studied by MR imaging at 0.35 T. Transaxial T1-weighted spin-echo sections were obtained from the knee to the umbilicus in approximately 45 minutes (including phase reconstruction). Thirty-one patients had contrast venography and 24 had clearly positive venograms. In each of these, MR images were abnormal at corresponding locations. Five patients had negative venographic and MR imaging studies, and two patients had evidence of chronic deep venous thrombosis by both modalities. The remaining 47 patients were studied either to corroborate another noninvasive test (Tc-99m red blood cell blood pool [16], CT [five], Doppler US [four][ or as the only diagnostic procedure. Acute inflammatory changes, soft-tissue masses, and abdominal extent of the thrombus were easily demonstrated by MR imaging. The authors conclude that (1) MR imaging is highly accurate as compared with venography, (2) MR imaging offers additional information regarding soft-tissue abnormality and proximal extent of venous disease, and (3) consistent diagnostic-quality MR images can routinely be obtained in less than 40 minutes