Neurovascular Angiography

Abstract

Before the widespread use of cross-sectional imaging, cerebral angiography was one of the most common diagnostic procedures in diagnostic radiology. With the advent of CT and MRI in the 1970s and 1980s, the exquisite anatomic and diagnostic information obtained from these examinations began to confine the role of angiography to its core strength of evaluating vascular abnormalities. The maturing of CT and MRI with the widespread use of MR and CT angiography has further encroached on the use of angiography in a primary diagnostic capacity. Furthermore, the dramatic progress in interventional neuroradiologic materials, techniques, and therapies has changed the role of angiography from primarily diagnostic to primarily pretherapeutic or therapeutic. However, the ability to perform a cerebral angiogram rightly remains a core skill in the diagnostic armamentarium of the radiologist.