3D MRI technique helps detect high-risk carotid disease
Canadian researchers have used 3D MRI to accurately detect bleeding within the walls of diseased carotid arteries, suggesting the technique may prove to be a useful screening tool for patients at high risk for stroke, according to a study published in the October issue of Radiology.
Until recently, physicians have believed that stenosis was responsible for most heart attacks or strokes. However, the researchers said that “new studies have identified the composition of complicated plaques as being a major cause of vascular events and deaths.” The complicated plaques are characterized by surface ulcerations, blood clots and bleeding into the vessel wall.
“There's been a major sea change in our research,” said Alan R. Moody, FRCR, of the University of Toronto. “We now know that the composition of carotid artery plaque is likely to be more predictive of future stroke events than the amount of stenosis in the vessel.”
In the study, conducted at the Sunnybrook Health Sciences Center in Toronto, researchers performed 3D MRI on the carotid arteries of 11 patients, ages 69 to 81. The investigators said that complicated plaques were then surgically removed from the patients’ diseased arteries and analyzed under a microscope.
The research team found strong agreement between the lesions identified by the MRI as complicated plaques and the microscopic analysis of the tissue samples.
“With high spatial resolution 3D MRI, we are able to noninvasively analyze the tissue within the artery wall and identify small bleeds within rupture-prone plaques that may put patients at risk for future stroke,” Moody said.
According to Moody, 3D MRI is a tool that is “ideally suited to screen high-risk patients for complicated carotid plaques and to monitor the effects of interventions designed to slow the progress of the atherosclerotic disease.” The technique is easy to perform and interpret and takes only a few minutes when added to an MR angiography study, he said.
Until recently, physicians have believed that stenosis was responsible for most heart attacks or strokes. However, the researchers said that “new studies have identified the composition of complicated plaques as being a major cause of vascular events and deaths.” The complicated plaques are characterized by surface ulcerations, blood clots and bleeding into the vessel wall.
“There's been a major sea change in our research,” said Alan R. Moody, FRCR, of the University of Toronto. “We now know that the composition of carotid artery plaque is likely to be more predictive of future stroke events than the amount of stenosis in the vessel.”
In the study, conducted at the Sunnybrook Health Sciences Center in Toronto, researchers performed 3D MRI on the carotid arteries of 11 patients, ages 69 to 81. The investigators said that complicated plaques were then surgically removed from the patients’ diseased arteries and analyzed under a microscope.
The research team found strong agreement between the lesions identified by the MRI as complicated plaques and the microscopic analysis of the tissue samples.
“With high spatial resolution 3D MRI, we are able to noninvasively analyze the tissue within the artery wall and identify small bleeds within rupture-prone plaques that may put patients at risk for future stroke,” Moody said.
According to Moody, 3D MRI is a tool that is “ideally suited to screen high-risk patients for complicated carotid plaques and to monitor the effects of interventions designed to slow the progress of the atherosclerotic disease.” The technique is easy to perform and interpret and takes only a few minutes when added to an MR angiography study, he said.