MDCT of the artery of Adamkiewicz

Accurate localization of the artery of Adamkiewicz (AKA) is important in planning surgical or interventional radiological treatment of patients with thoracoabdominal aortic diseases, and preoperative information that localizes this artery may reduce postoperative ischemic spinal complications [3-5, 7-10, 15, 17, 18, 25]. Although the usefulness of conventional angiography is reported [3, 8, 17, 25], various complications of spinal angiography have been described [17, 25]. Noninvasive detection of the AKA using magnetic resonance (MR) imaging and its surgical usefulness have also been reported [2, 4, 5, 7, 9, 10, 13, 15, 26-28], but because the scanning field of view is limited, MR imaging cannot simultaneously demonstrate the entire aorta and intercostal and lumbar arteries with information on the AKA. Effective use of multidetector-row helical computed tomography (MDCT) with a four-slice detector and 2-mm collimation to demonstrate the AKA has been initially reported [20]; however, that study did not focus on patients requiring an aortic vascular graft or stent-graft in the T8-T12 region, where the AKA likely originates and postoperative ischemic spinal complications are likely to occur.