Qualitative and Quantitative Evaluation of Vascular Flows of Radial, Ulnar and Interdigital Arterial Trees Under Normal and Pathological Conditions by 3 Tesla MRI

Allotransplants of vascularized composite tissues are subject to chronic vascular rejection, which can lead to graft loss. Currently, no imaging technique allows a reproducible quantitative exploration of the arterial trees of the hand, and therefore a satisfactory monitoring of transplants. Since 2014, flow MRI has been applied to the analysis of small-calibre arteries by the Image Processing Team at the Amiens-Picardie University Hospital. Between 2015 and 2017, several acquisitions were made in 3 patients who received facial allotransplantation, and the team recently developed a flow MRI protocol dedicated to the study of arterial trees in the hand. The main objective is to measure vascular flows of radial, ulnar and interdigital arterial trees in normal (healthy volunteers) and pathological situations (patients with radial forearm flap reconstruction and patients with hand allotransplantation) using the specifically developed flow MRI protocol.