Steen Fjord Pedersen1, William P. Paaske2,
Troels Thiem3, Samuel A Thryse, Erling Falk3, Steffen
Ringgaard, Won Yong Kim4
1Dept. of Cardiology, and MR-center,
Aarhus University Hospital, Skejby, Aarhus, Denmark; 2Dept. of
Cardiothoracic and Vascular Surgery T, Aarhus University Hospital, Skejby; 3Dept.
of Cardiology, Aarhus University Hospital, Skejby; 4dept. of
Cardiology, and MR-center, Aarhus University Hospital, Skejby
Inflammation
seems to play a key role in destabilization of atherosclerotic plaques.
Detection of Inflammatory activity within atherosclerotic plaques therefore
has the potential to distinguish between vulnerable and stable plaques. Using
a balloon injured porcine coronary artery, we examined whether edema as a
sign of inflammation could be detected in the vessel wall by MRI using a
T2-STIR (known to detect edema). After injury, the T2-STIR images showed a
significant increase in vessel wall enhancement of 143% (CI95 = [39.6 -
142.5]; and areas with signal enhancement correlated well to inflammation and
edema confirmed by histopathology.
Keywords