title: Accurate assessment of carotid artery stenosis in atherosclerotic mice using accelerated high-resolution 3D magnetic resonance angiography.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  High-resolution magnetic resonance angiography (MRA) enables non-invasive detection and longitudinal monitoring of atherosclerosis in mouse models of human disease. However, MRA is hampered by long acquisition times putting high demands on the physiological stability of the animal. Therefore, we evaluated the feasibility of accelerated MRA using the parallel imaging technique SENSE with regard to both lesion detection and quantification.
  
  
  METHODS
  MRA acquisitions of supra-aortic vessels were performed in ApoE (-/-) mice that have been shown to develop atherosclerotic plaques. Findings obtained from accelerated data sets were compared to fully sampled reference data sets and histology.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Our results revealed only minor differences in detecting vascular lesions for data collections accelerated by factors of up to 3.3 using a four-element coil array. For vessels with a mean lumen diameter of 500 μm, morphometry of stenotic lesions revealed no substantial deviations from reference (fully sampled) data for all investigated acceleration factors. For the highest acceleration factor of 3.3, an average deviation of the degree of stenosis of 4.9 ± 3.6% was found. Common carotid stenoses assessed by in vivo MRA displayed a good correlation with histological analyses (slope of linear regression = 0.97, R (2) = 0.98).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  According to the results of this work, we have demonstrated the feasibility and accuracy of accelerated high-resolution 3D ToF MRA in mice suitable for detailed depiction of mouse supra-aortic vessels and amenable to non-invasive quantification of small atherosclerotic lesions.
authors.affiliation: Institute for Biomedical Engineering, University and ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland.
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Ratering
authors.forename: Christof
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Baltes
authors.forename: Christine
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Lohmann
authors.forename: Christian M
authors.initials: CM
authors.lastname: Matter
authors.forename: Markus
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Rudin
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001057:Apolipoproteins E / Q000172:deficiency / Q000378:metabolism; D016893:Carotid Stenosis / Q000378:metabolism / Q000473:pathology*; D004195:Disease Models, Animal; D006801:Humans; D021621:Imaging, Three-Dimensional / Q000379:methods*; D018810:Magnetic Resonance Angiography / Q000379:methods*; D051379:Mice; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity
chemical_list: D001057:Apolipoproteins E