Victoria Eleanor Louise Young1, Andrew J.
Patterson1, Umar Sadat1, David J. Bowden1,
Martin J. Graves1,2, Andrew N. Priest1,2, Tjun Y. Tang1,
Jeremy N. Skepper3, Peter J. Kirkpatrick4, Jonathan H.
Gillard1
1University Department of Radiology,
Addenbrookes Hospital, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, United Kingdom; 2Department
of Medical Physics, Addenbrookes Hospital, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, United
Kingdom; 3Multi-imaging Centre, University of Cambridge,
Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, United Kingdom; 4Department of
Neurosurgery, Addenbrookes Hospital, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, United
Kingdom
Lipid-rich
necrotic core (LR/NC), which is difficult to identify on MRI, has importance
in predicting risk of clinical events. Previous studies using
diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) for ex-vivo imaging have demonstrated a
potential role for DWI. The aim of this study was to examine if DWI can be
applied in vivo to differentiate LR/NC from fibrous cap. 28 patients with
confirmed carotid atheroma were imaged at 1.5T using a dedicated 4 channel
phased-array carotid coil and ADC maps produced. A significant difference was
found between the ADC values for LR/NC and fibrous cap. DWI may provide
addition information for plaque classification.
Keywords