Pediatric MR angiography: Principles and applications

Magnetic resonance angiography is perhaps the most valuable in children when compared to all other patient groups. While CT angiography has made vast strides in imaging the neurovascular system in adults, these advances do not lend themselves to easy application in the pediatric patient population primarily due to the risk from the considerable radiation exposure that CT angiographic procedures entail. Likewise, conventional catheter angiography procedures also result in radiation exposure. While many CTA and conventional digital subtraction angiography procedures have been shown to result in radiation exposure which is less than the threshold for deterministic effects such as epilation or erythema, they nevertheless result in an increased risk for malignancy secondary to stochastic effects.