Keywords:
Neuroradiology brain, Vascular, Contrast agents, CT, CT-Angiography, Contrast agent-intravenous, Imaging sequences, Technical aspects, Artifacts, Calcifications / Calculi, Pathology
Authors:
C. Saade1, P. C. Brennan2; 1Mortlake, nsw/AU, 2Sydney/AU
DOI:
10.1594/ecr2012/C-0565
Methods and Materials
Carotid CTA was performed in 202 patients with stroke like symptoms using a 64 channel computed tomography scanner (VCT,GE,
Connecticut) and a dual barrel contrast injector (Stellant,
Medrad,
Pennsylvania).
Patients were subjected in equal numbers to one of two acquisition/contrast regimen.
Patient age and gender were equally distributed across both groups.
Regimen A,
the department’s standard protocol,
consisted of a caudocranial scan direction with 100mL of contrast (Ultravist 370 mgI/mL; Schering,
Germany),
intravenously injected at a flow rate (FR) of 4.5 mL/s; Regimen B,
involved a craniocaudal scan direction and a novel contrast formula based on patient cardiovascular dynamics,
using 50 mLs of saline at 4.5 mL/s.
The average attenuation profile of 23 and 6 anatomical segments within extra- and intra-cranial arteries and veins respectively were measured for each patient and arterial venous contrast ratio (AVCR) calculated.
Data generated were compared between regimen using Mann-Whitney U non-parametric statistics.