A Preliminary Study of Gadobenate Dimeglumine Enhanced Magnetic Resonance Angiography Detection of Prostatic Artery Anatomy

Background: To describe the feasibility of anatomy and imaging findings of the prostatic arteries (PAs) on contrast-enhanced MR angiography (ce-MRA). Methods: This prospective study enrolled 7 patients undergoing pelvic 3.0 T ce-MRA and selective pelvic digital subtraction angiography before prostatic artery embolization (PAE). Four patients underwent fluoroscopically triggered ce-MRA and 3 patients underwent time-resolved imaging of contrast kinetics. PAE was performed within one week of MRA. Two radiologists independently analyzed MRA findings. The analyzed parameters included the number of independent PAs and their origin, trajectory, and anastomoses with adjacent arteries. Image quality in terms of signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and contrast-tonoise ratio (CNR) to visualize common iliac artery and its branches including prostatic arteries was compared between the two groups. Results: A total of 17 PAs were demonstrated in 7 cases. The diagnostic accuracy of MRA in detecting bilateral PAs was 58.82%. Moreover, 71.42% of the patients had only one PA in one side, and 7.14% had independent PAs. The mean diameter of 10 PAs was 1.39 ± 0.46 mm. About 29.41% of PAs originated from the obturator arteries and 29.41% from the pudendal arteries. Bilateral PAs were found to be symmetric in 3 cases and asymmetric in 4 cases. No significance difference was found between the image quality of the two groups, except for the signal intensity of the right common iliac artery and right internal iliac artery and SNR and CNR of the left common iliac artery. Conclusions: This study shows that ce-MRA is able to detect PA, and can provide guidance for PAE.