Article Text

Download PDFPDF
Systematic review and meta-analysis
Prospective studies show that magnetic resonance angiography has high sensitivity and specificity for clinically relevant arterial steno-occlusions in adults with peripheral arterial disease symptoms
  1. Paul N Malcolm1,
  2. Mark Lewis1
  1. 1Radiology Department, Norfolk & Norwich University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, Norwich, UK
  1. Correspondence to Paul N Malcolm
    Radiology Department, Norfolk & Norwich University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, Colney Lane, Norwich NR4 7UY, UK; paul.malcolm{at}nnuh.nhs.uk

Statistics from Altmetric.com

Request Permissions

If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.

Commentary on:

.

Context

Magnetic resonance angiography (MRA) has been increasingly used to assess peripheral arterial disease over the past decade as an alternative to conventional catheter angiography (digital subtraction angiography (DSA)), which has been the gold standard.

Method

This meta-analysis by Menke and Larsen selected 32 studies which compared MRA with DSA. The studies were published between 2004 and 2009 and are all prospective. The data are from 1032 adults and an assessment of 18 345 imaged arterial segments.

This is a rigorous study. All the articles assessed are high quality with a QUADAS score of >11 and a median score of 13. One factor reducing the scores has been the absence of clinical data, but we agree with the authors that this may not be appropriate in what should be a solely technical comparison of degree of arterial stenosis. The authors point …

View Full Text

Footnotes

  • Competing interests None.