Cross-sectional, prospective study of MRI reproducibility in the assessment of plaque burden of the carotid arteries and aorta

Abstract

IntroductionThis cross sectional study was conducted to test reproducibility of analysis of MRI parameters in carotids and thoracic descending aorta (TOA), evaluate the correlation of plaque burden and associations with subject age and gender.MethodsThree hundred subjects, with cardiovascular risk factors, underwent a black blood MRI of both carotids and TOA. Mean wall area, wall thickness, lumen area, total vessel area and wall area/total vessel area (WA/TVA) ratio were manually measured. Inter-reader and intra-reader-reproducibility was tested on 187 and 20 randomly chosen subjects respectively.ResultsThe intra-observer-reproducibility for the analysis was high (Intraclass-Correlation-Coefficients (ICC’s >0.8), except mean WA/TVA ratio of TOA. Similarly, the inter-observer reproducibility was acceptable (ICC’s >0.7 for mean wall area, lumen area and total vessel area). MRI parameters in aorta and carotids increased with age for both sexes (p<0.001). Except for mean wall thickness of TOA and WA/TVA ratio, MRI parameters were significantly higher in males than in females. All MRI measurements except the mean wall thickness and WA/TVA ratio were highly reproducible. There was good correlation for mean wall area between carotids and aorta compatible with the systemic nature of atherosclerosis. Similar to clinical presentation of cardiovascular diseases we found greater values in most MRI parameters (except for WA/TVA ratio) in males than in females and with increasing age.ConclusionsThese data suggest that analysis of most MRI measurements of plaque burden is reproducible and that there is correlation between plaque burden between carotids and aorta validating the systemic distribution of the disease.

Imaging Atherosclerotic Plaque Inflammation by Fluorodeoxyglucose With Positron Emission Tomography

“…In addition, excellent 3-month reproducibility in the carotid artery has been demonstrated in bystander plaque in patients imaged before and after carotid endarterectomy (55). Reproducibility statistics for FDG PET compare favorably with those published for MRI and ultrasound measures of plaque burden (77,78). In the longer term, there seems to be a degree of progression of FDG uptake in arterial segments, with smaller changes noted in calcified segments in the same patients (79,80).…”

Markerless attenuation correction for carotid MRI surface receiver coils in combined PET/MR imaging

“…Furthermore, ROI analysis was also conducted to quantify local errors from attenuation of the coil using a 2 cm ROI placed 2 cm and 5 cm away from the coil to investigate the attenuation effects of the coils at a depth range similar to the position of carotid arteries in humans. The size of the ROI was chosen so that it represents the size of the carotid artery lumen and the vessel wall that might contain plaques (El Aidi et al , 2009). …”

Atherosclerosis imaging using 3D black blood TSE SPACEvs2D TSE

“…Image resolution referred by the isotropic voxel size was approximately 0.78 mm 3 for the carotids, 1.1 mm 3 for the aorta, and 1.0 mm 3 for the bilateral femoral arteries. For comparison purposes, 12 slice 2D TSE images using multi-contrast weightings and parallel saturations bands for flow suppression (FS) were also obtained for the Wong SK et al .…”

“…In the past decade, MRI has emerged as a versatile imaging modality for in vivo, non-invasive assessment of blood vessels morphology and vessel walls composition [3][4][5][6] . More specifically, MRI has been used extensively for assessment of plaque burden of multiple vascular beds including the carotids, aorta and peripheral arteries [7][8][9] .…”