Dataset Information

Understanding the Clinical Implications of Intracranial Arterial Calcification Using Brain CT and Vessel Wall Imaging.

ABSTRACT: Background and Purpose: Intracranial arterial calcification (IAC) has been the focus of much attention by clinicians and researchers as an indicator of intracranial atherosclerosis, but correlations of IAC patterns (intimal or medial) with the presence of atherosclerotic plaques and plaque stability are still a matter of debate. Our study aimed to assess the associations of IAC patterns identified on computed tomography (CT) with the presence of plaque detected on vessel wall magnetic resonance imaging and plaque stability. Materials and Methods: Patients with stroke or transient ischemic attack and intracranial artery stenosis were recruited. IAC was detected and localized (intima or media) on non-contrast CT images. Intracranial atherosclerotic plaques were identified using vessel wall magnetic resonance imaging and matched to corresponding CT images. Associations between IAC patterns and culprit atherosclerotic plaques were assessed by using multivariate regression. Results: Seventy-five patients (mean age, 63.4 ± 11.6 years; males, 46) were included. Two hundred and twenty-one segments with IAC were identified on CT in 66 patients, including 86 (38.9%) predominantly intimal calcifications and 135 (61.1%) predominantly medial calcifications. A total of 72.0% of intimal calcifications coexisted with atherosclerotic plaques, whereas only 10.2% of medial calcifications coexisted with plaques. Intimal calcification was more commonly shown in non-culprit plaques than culprit plaques (25.9 vs. 9.4%, P = 0.008). The multivariate mixed logistic regression adjusted for the degree of stenosis showed that intimal calcification was significantly associated with non-culprit plaques (OR, 2.971; 95% CI, 1.036-8.517; P = 0.043). Conclusion: Our findings suggest that intimal calcification may indicate the existence of a stable form of atherosclerotic plaque, but plaques can exist in the absence of intimal calcification especially in the middle cerebral artery.

SUBMITTER: Yang WJ

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8319500 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Similar Datasets

Project description:Optimal criteria for diagnosing and monitoring response to treatment for infectious and inflammatory medium-large vessel intracranial vasculitis presenting with stroke are lacking. We integrated intracranial vessel wall MRI with arterial spin labelling into our routine clinical stroke pathway to detect presumed inflammatory intracranial arterial vasculopathy, and monitor disease activity, in patients with clinical stroke syndromes. We used predefined standardized radiological criteria to define vessel wall enhancement, and all imaging findings were rated blinded to clinical details. Between 2017 and 2018, stroke or transient ischaemic attack patients were first screened in our vascular radiology meeting and followed up in a dedicated specialist stroke clinic if a diagnosis of medium-large inflammatory intracranial arterial vasculopathy was radiologically confirmed. Treatment was determined and monitored by a multi-disciplinary team. In this case series, 11 patients were managed in this period from the cohort of young stroke presenters (<55 years). The median age was 36 years (interquartile range: 33,50), of which 8 of 11 (73%) were female. Two of 11 (18%) had herpes virus infection confirmed by viral nucleic acid in the cerebrospinal fluid. We showed improvement in cerebral perfusion at 1 year using an arterial spin labelling sequence in patients taking immunosuppressive therapy for >4 weeks compared with those not receiving therapy [6 (100%) versus 2 (40%) P = 0.026]. Our findings demonstrate the potential utility of vessel wall magnetic resonance with arterial spin labelling imaging in detecting and monitoring medium-large inflammatory intracranial arterial vasculopathy activity for patients presenting with stroke symptoms, limiting the need to progress to brain biopsy. Further systematic studies in unselected populations of stroke patients are needed to confirm our findings and establish the prevalence of medium-large artery wall inflammation.

Project description:BackgroundThree-dimensional (3D) whole-brain vessel wall imaging (VWI) has demonstrated exquisite image quality for delineating intracranial atherosclerotic disease (ICAD) and reliability for quantifying normal vessel dimensions. However, its reliability in quantifying plaque morphology remains unknown.PurposeTo evaluate the plaque morphologic quantification reliability of 3D whole-brain VWI in patients via comparison with 3D targeted VWI and 2D turbo spin-echo (TSE).Study typeProspective.PopulationThirty-three patients with symptomatic ICAD.Field strength/sequenceA 3D and 2D TSE acquired at 3.0 T.AssessmentEach participant underwent two VWI sessions with an interval of 7-10 days. Three readers identified in consensus all the plaques on both whole-brain and targeted 3D VWI. Their lumen and vessel wall area and volume, plaque burden, percent stenosis, and vessel wall remodeling were measured for by two independent readers. At each culprit plaque determined by a radiologist, the lumen and vessel wall area, plaque burden, plaque-to-wall contrast ratio (CR), and plaque enhancement ratio (ER) were measured for 2D and 3D VWI methods.Statistical testsIntra-class correlation coefficient (ICC) was used to evaluate for 3D VWI's interobserver/intraobserver agreement, interscan repeatability, and agreement with 2D TSE in each plaque morphologic measurements. Paired t test was performed for detecting the differences in plaque-to-wall CR and plaque ER between the two 3D methods.ResultsEighty-four plaques were detected by both 3D VWI methods. Whole-brain VWI provided excellent interobserver/intraobserver agreement (ICCs: 0.79-0.99/0.95-0.99), interscan repeatability (ICCs: 0.85-0.99), agreement with 2D TSE (ICC: 0.80-0.94) in all morphologic measurements. ICCs of whole-brain VWI (0.79-0.99) were higher or equal to those of targeted VWI (0.76-0.99). The plaque-to-wall CR and plaque ER were significantly higher on whole-brain VWI than on targeted VWI.Data conclusionThe 3D whole-brain VWI provides excellent interobserver/intraobserver agreement, interscan repeatability, and agreement with 2D TSE in plaque morphologic quantification of ICAD and outperforms 3D targeted VWI.Level of evidence2 TECHNICAL EFFICACY STAGE: 2.

Project description:BACKGROUND:One of the potentially important applications of three-dimensional (3D) intracranial vessel wall (IVW) cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR) is to monitor disease progression and regression via quantitative measurement of IVW morphology during medical management or drug development. However, a prerequisite for this application is to validate that IVW morphologic measurements based on the modality are reliable. In this study we performed comprehensive reliability analysis for the recently proposed whole-brain IVW CMR technique. METHODS:Thirty-four healthy subjects and 10 patients with known intracranial atherosclerotic disease underwent repeat whole-brain IVW CMR scans. In 19 of the 34 subjects, two-dimensional (2D) turbo spin-echo (TSE) scan was performed to serve as a reference for the assessment of vessel dimensions. Lumen and wall volume, normalized wall index, mean and maximum wall thickness were measured in both 3D and 2D IVW CMR images. Scan-rescan, intra-observer, and inter-observer reproducibility of 3D IVW CMR in the quantification of IVW or plaque dimensions were respectively assessed in volunteers and patients as well as for different healthy subjectsub-groups (i.e. < 50 and ≥ 50 years). The agreement in vessel wall and lumen measurements between the 3D technique and the 2D TSE method was also investigated. In addition, the sample size required for future longitudinal clinical studies was calculated. RESULTS:The intra-class correlation coefficient (ICC) and Bland-Altman plots indicated excellent reproducibility and inter-method agreement for all morphologic measurements (All ICCs > 0.75). In addition, all ICCs of patients were equal to or higher than that of healthy subjects except maximum wall thickness. In volunteers, all ICCs of the age group of ≥50 years were equal to or higher than that of the age group of < 50 years. Normalized wall index and mean and maximum wall thickness were significantly larger in the age group of ≥50 years. To detect 5% - 20% difference between placebo and treatment groups, normalized wall index requires the smallest sample size while lumen volume requires the highest sample size. CONCLUSIONS:Whole-brain 3D IVW CMR is a reliable imaging method for the quantification of intracranial vessel dimensions and could potentially be useful for monitoring plaque progression and regression.

Project description:BackgroundT2-weighted (T2w) intracranial vessel wall imaging (IVWI) provides good contrast to differentiate intracranial vasculopathies and discriminate various important plaque components. However, the strong cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) signal in T2w images interferes with depicting the intracranial vessel wall. In this study, we propose a T2-prepared sequence for whole-brain IVWI at 3T with CSF suppression.MethodsA preparation module that combines T2 preparation and inversion recovery (T2IR) was used to suppress the CSF signal and was incorporated into the commercial three-dimensional (3D) turbo spin echo sequence-Sampling Perfection with Application optimized Contrast using different flip angle Evolution (SPACE). This new technique (hereafter called T2IR-SPACE) was evaluated on nine healthy volunteers and compared with two other commonly used 3D T2-weighted sequences: T2w-SPACE and FLAIR-SPACE (FLAIR: fluid-attenuated inversion recovery). The signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs) of the vessel wall (VW) and CSF and contrast-to-noise ratios (CNRs) between them were measured and compared among these three T2-weighted sequences. Subjective wall visualization of the three T2-weighted sequences was scored blindly and independently by two radiologists using a four-point scale followed by inter-rater reproducibility analysis. A pilot study of four stroke patients was performed to preliminarily evaluate the diagnostic value of this new sequence, which was compared with two conventional T2-weighted sequences.ResultsT2IR-SPACE had the highest CNR (11.01 ± 6.75) compared with FLAIR-SPACE (4.49 ± 3.15; p < 0.001) and T2w-SPACE (-56.16 ± 18.58; p < 0.001). The subjective wall visualization score of T2IR-SPACE was higher than those of FLAIR-SPACE and T2w-SPACE (T2IR-SPACE: 2.35 ± 0.59; FLAIR-SPACE: 0.52 ± 0.54; T2w-SPACE: 1.67 ± 0.58); the two radiologists' scores showed excellent agreement (ICC = 0.883).ConclusionThe T2IR preparation module markedly suppressed the CSF signal without much SNR loss of the other tissues (i.e., vessel wall, white matter, and gray matter) compared with the IR pulse. Our results suggest that T2IR-SPACE is a potential alternative T2-weighted sequence for assessing intracranial vascular diseases.

Project description:BackgroundIntracranial aneurysms and intracranial atherosclerosis are prevalent cerebrovascular diseases, and individuals with atherosclerosis have a higher incidence of aneurysms than those without atherosclerosis. However, few studies have conducted combined analyses to investigate the potential association between intracranial aneurysms and intracranial atherosclerosis. This retrospective cross-sectional study aimed to investigate the association between the characteristics of the aneurysm wall and intracranial large arterial plaque using high-resolution vessel wall imaging (HR-VWI).MethodsHospitalized patients diagnosed with anterior circulation unruptured intracranial aneurysms (UIAs), who were diagnosed at Huashan Hospital of Fudan University in Shanghai, China, between March 2016 to February 2018, were consecutively recruited for this study. The patients' pre-treatment HR-VWI images and 3D time-of-flight magnetic resonance angiography (3D-TOF-MRA) images were collected. The patients and UIAs were divided into two groups according to the presence or absence of plaque in the M1 segment of the middle cerebral artery (MCA). Clinical information and aneurysm characteristics were compared between the two groups. Aneurysm wall enhancement (AWE) and M1 plaque were graded on scales of 0 to 2 on HR-VWI. Based on the gradings, the correlation between AWE and the M1 plaques was analyzed.ResultsA total of 109 patients with 128 saccular UIAs in the anterior circulation were enrolled in the study. Of the patients, there were 56 patients (with 65 UIAs) in the group with M1 plaque and 53 patients (with 63 UIAs) in the group without plaque. There were significant differences between the two groups in terms of both their clinical information (age and hypertension) and aneurysm characteristics (AWE pattern and AWE degree). The grades of the AWE patterns and the AWE degrees of the UIAs were higher in the group with M1 plaque than in the group without plaque. In the M1 plaque group, the grade of M1 plaque was positively correlated with the grade of AWE pattern (correlation coefficient R=0.41, P=0.001) and the grade of AWE degree (correlation coefficient R=0.50, P<0.001).ConclusionsMCA atherosclerosis plaque was associated with the AWE of saccular aneurysms. When evaluating UIAs, attention should also be paid to the large arterial wall, which may assist in assessing the stability of the aneurysm and enable better decision making.

Project description:Background and purposeIntracranial atherosclerotic disease is a common cause of stroke worldwide. Intracranial vessel wall magnetic resonance imaging may be able to identify imaging biomarkers of symptomatic plaque. We performed a meta-analysis to evaluate the strength of association of imaging features of symptomatic plaque leading to downstream ischemic events. Effects on the strength of association were also assessed accounting for possible sources of bias and variability related to study design and magnetic resonance parameters.MethodsPubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, EMBASE, and Cochrane databases were searched up to October 2019. Two independent reviewers extracted data on study design, vessel wall magnetic resonance imaging techniques, and imaging end points. Per-lesion odds ratios (OR) were calculated and pooled using a bivariate random-effects model. Subgroup analyses, sensitivity analysis, and evaluation of publication bias were also performed.ResultsTwenty-one articles met inclusion criteria (1750 lesions; 1542 subjects). Plaque enhancement (OR, 7.42 [95% CI, 3.35-16.43]), positive remodeling (OR, 5.60 [95% CI, 2.23-14.03]), T1 hyperintensity (OR, 2.05 [95% CI, 1.27-3.32]), and surface irregularity (OR, 4.50 [95% CI, 1.39-8.57]) were significantly associated with downstream ischemic events. T2 signal intensity was not significant (P=0.59). Plaque enhancement was significantly associated with downstream ischemic events in all subgroup analyses and showed stronger associations when measured in retrospectively designed studies (P=0.02), by a radiologist as a rater (P<0.001), and on lower vessel wall magnetic resonance imaging spatial resolution sequences (P=0.02).ConclusionsPlaque enhancement, positive remodeling, T1 hyperintensity, and surface irregularity emerged as strong imaging biomarkers of symptomatic plaque in patients with ischemic events. Plaque enhancement remained significant accounting for sources of bias and variability in both study design and instrument. Future studies evaluating plaque enhancement as a predictive marker for stroke recurrence with larger sample sizes would be valuable.

Dataset Information

Understanding the Clinical Implications of Intracranial Arterial Calcification Using Brain CT and Vessel Wall Imaging.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets