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Title: 3-D MRI Technique Helps Radiologists Detect High-Risk Carotid Disease
URL: http://www.pslgroup.com/dg/22C7F6.htm
Doctor's Guide
September 16, 2008

OAK BROOK, Ill -- September 16, 2008 -- Canadian researchers have used 3-dimensional magnetic resonance imaging (3-D MRI) to accurately detect bleeding within the walls of diseased carotid arteries, according to a study published in the October issue of Radiology.

The authors suggest that the technique may prove to be a useful screening tool for patients at high risk for stroke.

"There's been a major sea change in our research," said Alan R. Moody, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario. "We now know that the composition of carotid artery plaque is likely to be more predictive of future stroke events than the amount of stenosis in the vessel."

For the study researchers performed 3-D MRI on the carotid arteries of 11 patients, aged 69 to 81 years. Complicated plaques were then surgically removed from the patients' diseased arteries and analysed under a microscope.

The research team found strong agreement between the lesions identified by MRI as complicated plaques and the microscopic analysis of the tissue samples.

"With high spatial resolution 3-D MRI, we are able to noninvasively analyse the tissue within the artery wall and identify small bleeds within rupture-prone plaques that may put patients at risk for future stroke," said Dr. Moody.

According to Dr. Moody, 3-D MRI is a tool that is ideally suited to screen high-risk patients for complicated carotid plaques and to monitor the effects of interventions designed to slow the progress of the atherosclerotic disease. The technique is easy to perform and interpret and takes only a few minutes when added to an MR angiography study, he said.


SOURCE: Radiological Society of North America

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