Abstract #1277

Liu F, Xu D, Chu B, Saam T, Takaya N, Underhill H, Hatsukami T, Yuan C, Kerwin W

MRI is a promising noninvasive technique for characterizing atherosclerotic plaque composition in vivo, with an end-goal of assessing plaque vulnerability. In a previous study, MEPPS was introduced as a promising algorithm for automatic in vivo plaque component analysis. This study evaluates the in vivo reproducibility of plaque segmentation by MEPPS. Both the visual and quantitative comparison between manual drawing and MEPPS segmentation demonstrates that MEPPS and manual drawing achieve comparable reproducibility. Thus, MEPPS can be used in therapeutic clinical trials and in prospective longitudinal studies to examine carotid atherosclerotic plaque progression and regression to reduce radiologists work in large studies.