title: Assessment of carotid artery atherosclerotic disease by using three-dimensional fast black-blood MR imaging: comparison with DSA.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To assess fast three-dimensional (3D) black-blood (BB) magnetic resonance (MR) imaging as a noninvasive alternative to intraarterial digital subtraction angiography (DSA) at quantifying moderate to severe carotid artery atherosclerotic disease.
  
  
  METHODS
  Local ethics committee approval and written informed patient consent were obtained for this study. Sixty-five carotid arteries from 52 patients with at least 50% stenosis underwent 3D BB MR imaging and DSA. Quantitative measurements, including stenosis, lesion length, and the presence or absence of plaque ulceration, obtained with the two modalities were independently determined. Sensitivity and specificity, the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC), Cohen κ, and Bland-Altman analysis were used to assess the agreement.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Excellent agreement in measuring luminal stenosis was found between 3D BB MR imaging and DSA (ICC, 0.96; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.93, 0.97). Three-dimensional BB MR imaging was also found to have high sensitivity (91.7%), specificity (96.2%), and agreement (Cohen κ, 0.85; 95% CI: 0.66, 0.99) with DSA for detection of ulcers. Good agreement was found between lesion length measured by using 3D BB MR imaging and DSA (ICC, 0.75; 95% CI: 0.51, 0.84). However, lesion length measurements by using 3D BB MR imaging were, on average, 4.0 mm longer than those measured by using DSA (P < .001).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Three-dimensional BB MR imaging is a noninvasive and accurate way to quantify moderate to severe carotid artery atherosclerotic disease. With fast acquisition and large coverage, 3D BB MR imaging has the potential to become an alternative imaging approach in evaluating the severity of atherosclerosis.
authors.affiliation: From the Departments of Radiology (H.Z., X.L., Y.C., J.X.) and Neurosurgery (J. Wan), Ren Ji Hospital, School of Medicine, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, 1630 Dongfang Road, Shanghai 200127, China; Philips Research North America, Briarliff Manor, NY (J. Wang); Department of Radiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Wash (J. Wang, D.S.H., C.Y.); and Biomedical Engineering & Center for Biomedical Imaging Research, School of Medicine, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China (X.Z.).
authors.forename: Huilin
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Zhao
authors.forename: Jinnan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Xiaosheng
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Xihai
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Zhao
authors.forename: Daniel S
authors.initials: DS
authors.lastname: Hippe
authors.forename: Ye
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Cao
authors.forename: Jieqing
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Wan
authors.forename: Chun
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Yuan
authors.forename: Jianrong
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Xu
mesh_terms: D015901:Angiography, Digital Subtraction; D002340:Carotid Artery Diseases / Q000175:diagnosis*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D021621:Imaging, Three-Dimensional; D018810:Magnetic Resonance Angiography / Q000379:methods*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D012720:Severity of Illness Index