High-resolution intracranial vessel wall imaging using 3D CUBE T1 weighted sequence.
PURPOSE
To evaluate the feasibility of high-resolution 3D CUBE T1WI for intracranial vessel wall imaging.


METHODS
High-resolution 3D CUBE T1 weighted intracranial vessel wall images (0.4 mm × 0.4 mm × 0.4 mm) of 50 patients were retrospectively evaluated. A 5-point scale (1 poor, 5 excellent) was used to score the imaging quality for displaying the vessel wall of every intracranial artery segments. The inter-observer and intra-observer reproducibility of identifying plaques, intraplaque hemorrhage/luminal thrombosis, and wall enhancement were calculated.


RESULTS
Totally 893 artery segments were evaluated. 3D CUBE T1WI displayed the arteries wall and lumen clearly, with the highest score (4.920 ± 0.837) for the C6-7 segments and the lowest (3.370 ± 1.107) for the C3 segments of the internal carotid artery (ICA). Both intra-observer and inter-observer reproducibility were high for identification of normal walls (κ=0.928, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.891-0.954; κ=0.911, CI 0.868-0.940), plaque (κ=0.924, CI 0.884-0.954; κ=0.907, CI 0.866-0.943), luminal thrombosis (κ=1.000, CI 1.000-1.000; κ=1.000, CI 1.000-1.000), and wall enhancement (κ=1.000, CI 1.000-1.000; κ=0.914, CI 0.863-0.961).


CONCLUSIONS
High-resolution 3D CUBE T1WI displayed intracranial wall and lumen clearly, and detected intracranial artery abnormalities with high reproducibility.
['Li|Ming-Li|ML|', 'Xu|Yu-Yuan|YY|', 'Hou|Bo|B|', 'Sun|Zhao-Yong|ZY|', 'Zhou|Hai-Long|HL|', 'Jin|Zheng-Yu|ZY|', 'Feng|Feng|F|', 'Xu|Wei-Hai|WH|']
D000328:Adult D000368:Aged D001488:Basilar Artery D002343:Carotid Artery, Internal D016893:Carotid Stenosis D002533:Cerebral Angiography D003287:Contrast Media D005240:Feasibility Studies D005260:Female D019786:Gadolinium DTPA D006801:Humans D007089:Image Enhancement D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted D021621:Imaging, Three-Dimensional D020765:Intracranial Arterial Diseases D020767:Intracranial Thrombosis D018810:Magnetic Resonance Angiography D008297:Male D008875:Middle Aged D059906:Neuroimaging D058226:Plaque, Atherosclerotic D015203:Reproducibility of Results D012189:Retrospective Studies D014711:Vertebral Artery
High-resolution Vessel wall imaging Intracranial artery Magnetic resonance imaging T1 weighted imaging Three-dimensional imaging