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Keywords:
Vascular, CNS, Neuroradiology brain, MR, MR-Angiography, Imaging sequences, Arteriosclerosis, Ischaemia / Infarction
Authors:
L. Chen, Q. Liu, X. Tian, Q. Zhan, C. Ma, Y. Jiang, W. Peng, B. Tian, J.-P. Lu; Shanghai/CN
DOI:
10.1594/ecr2016/C-0430
Aims and objectives
Intracranial atherosclerotic disease (ICAD) is the most common cause of ischemic stroke worldwide,
especially among patients of Asian and Hispanic ancestry [1-3].
Basilar atherosclerotic plaque is usually observed in patients with ischemic strokes and transient ischemic attacks of the posterior cerebral circulation [4].
Advanced MRI technology,
especially at 3T field strength,
offers significant improvement in signal-to-noise,
vessel wall to lumen contrast-to-noise ratio and image quality compared to imaging at 1.5T [5].
Dark blood high-resolution MR imaging (HRMRI) has emerged in recent years as an effective tool for identifying plaque in the intracranial arteries due to its noninvasive and radiation free properties [6-9].
HRMRI has also been used for studying intra-observer and inter-observer variability of intracranial artery plaques [10,
11].
Concerning longitudinal follow up of atherosclerosis,
repeated MRI scans can be used to detect changes in carotid artery vessel wall [5,
12],
middle cerebral artery vessel wall [13] and may reflect the effect of interventional strategies [14].
However,
to the best of our knowledge,
the scan and rescan reproducibility of quantitative in vivo measurements of BA plaque area (PA),
stenosis rate (SR) and percent plaque burden (PPB) has never been assessed.
The goal of this work was therefore to investigate interscan and intraobserver reproducibility of basilar arterial atherosclerotic plaque (PA,
SR and PPB) using dark blood HRMRI at 3 T.