Exploration des artères pulmonaires en imagerie

Spiral angio CT has become the first choice imaging modality to investigate the pulmonary arterial circulation. Concerning pulmonary embolism, thin slice imaging and, recently, multi-slice angioCT have improved the diagnosis accuracy at the sub-segmental level. The diagnosis of tumoural involvement of the pulmonary arteries and the depiction and characterization of arterio-venous malformations relies on spiral CT. The non-invasive analysis of pulmonary flow and velocities is possible using MRI. Angio MR with injection of gadolinium also provides high quality images of the central pulmonary arteries. The use of digital subtracted angiography is restricted to endovascular procedures such as embolization of arterio-venous malformations and aneurysms and occlusion of pulmonary arteries in case of severe bleeding from the pulmonary vasculature.