Lynne McCormick1,
Jonathan Weir-McCall2, Richard White2, Stephen J. Gandy3,
Jill Belch4, John Houston2
1The
Institute of Cardiovascular Research, University of Dundee, Dundee, Angus,
United Kingdom; 2Clinical Radiology, Ninewells Hospital and
Medical School, Dundee, Angus, United Kingdom; 3Medical Physics,
Ninewells Hospital and Medical School, Dundee, Angus, United Kingdom; 4Division
of Cardiovascular and Diabetes Medicine, University of Dundee, Dundee,
Scotland, United Kingdom
Contrast-enhanced whole-body MRA enables cardiovascular analysis of the entire arterial tree excluding the coronary vessels, enabling characterization of atherosclerotic disease on a systemic level. As part of on-going work in whole-body MRA analysis, this study examines reproducibility and variability in radiological stenosis quantification between two cardiovascular radiologists, and therefore the extent of observer influence on cardiovascular assessment of images in both single site and whole-body atherosclerosis scoring. Analysis was performed at 159 arterial locations for each of 20 patients, including screening and clinically symptomatic patient groups.