Room 355 EF

10:30 - 12:30

Moderators:

Zahi A. Fayad, M. Eline Kooi

Zahi A. Fayad

 

Niranjan Balu¹, Daniel S. Hippe¹, Jie Sun¹, Dongxiang Xu¹, Thomas Hatsukami², and Chun Yuan^1
1Radiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, United States, ²Surgery, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, United States

The size of the lipid-rich necrotic core (LRNC) in atherosclerotic plaque is an early indicator of efficacy in lipid lowering therapy. Clinical trials using LRNC as the primary endpoint require highly specific screening for subjects with LRNC in order to be cost-effective. We describe the first multicenter MRI study using LRNC as the primary study endpoint with a tiered ultrasound-MRI screening. A probabilistic model derived using sensitivity and specificity of maximum wall thickness (maxWT) in detecting subjects with LRNC shows that total imaging costs can be reduced by 10% while increasing specificity by adding maxWT to the tiered ultrasound-MRI screening.

Zhaoyang Fan¹, Jingsi Xie¹, Yi He², Yutaka Natsuaki³, Ning Jin⁴, Daniel S. Berman⁵, and Debiao Li^5
1Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, California, United States, ²Radiology, Beijing Anzhen Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing, China, ³Siemens Healthcare, Los Angeles, California, United States, ⁴Siemens Healthcare, Columbus, OH, United States, ⁵Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, CA, United States

Dynamic gadolinium contrast-enhanced (DCE) vessel wall MRI has recently been used to characterize the extent of inflammation in carotid plaques. However, no studies have shown its feasibility in coronary artery wall, presumably due to the technical challenges in imaging such a constantly-moving and ultra-small structure and visually distinguishing the wall from the hyperintense lumen with conventional DCE techniques. The present work aimed to develop a black-blood navigator-gated ECG-triggered T1-weighted sequence for DCE MRI of coronary vessel wall. The sequence allows acquisition of high-spatial-resolution bright blood and black blood images in an interleaved fashion, regardless of time-varying T1 of blood.

Zechen Zhou¹, Rui Li¹, Xihai Zhao¹, Le He¹, and Chun Yuan^1,2
1Department of Biomedical Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, ²Department of Radiology, University of Washington (Seattle), Seattle, Washington, United States

Multi-contrast Black Blood (BB) MRI can effectively detect and measure the atherosclerotic plaque morphology and components. Currently wide used 2D T1W and T2W BB imaging sequences might give rise to missed or false diagnosis due to the limitations of the lesion detection range and partial volume effect. In this study, we suppose to apply the recently proposed 3D multi-contrast BB techniques including MERGE, VISTA and SNAP to cover the major intracranial and entire extracranial arteries and we found that the blood suppression effectiveness and image quality for diagnosis in this large-coverage situation can fully support for the one-stop neurovascular screening.

Ioannis Koktzoglou^1,2, Tina Desai^2,3, and NavYash Gupta^2,3
1Radiology, NorthShore University HealthSystem, Evanston, Illinois, United States, ²The University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine, Chicago, IL, United States, ³Vascular Surgery, NorthShore University HealthSystem, Skokie, IL, United States

A three-dimensional dark-blood cine magnetic resonance imaging pulse sequence capable of displaying the human arterial wall is described. The method is applied to the carotid arteries and demonstrates the ability to display the arterial wall and its motion with fine temporal resolution and submillimeter spatial resolution over the cardiac cycle.

Huilin Zhao¹, Jinnan Wang^2,3, Xihai Zhao⁴, Xiaosheng Liu¹, Ye Cao¹, Jianrong Xu¹, Daniel S. Hippe³, and Chun Yuan^3
1Radiology, Renji hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong Univesity School of Medicine, Shanghai, Shanghai, China, ²Philips Research North America, Seattle, WA, United States, ³Radiology, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, United States, ⁴Center for Biomedical Imaging Research,Tsinghua University School of Medicine, Beijing, Beijing, China

It has been shown that fast 3D black-blood (BB) MR sequence is capable of delineating both luminal and outer wall boundaries of bilateral carotid arteries. This study sought to determine the accuracy of this technique at quantifying carotid atherosclerotic disease compared to DSA in patients with at least 50% luminal stenosis. Our key findings are that very good agreement was found between 3D BB-MRI and DSA in assessing carotid luminal stenosis and ulceration. However, carotid stenotic lesion length measurements by 3D BB-MRI were significantly longer than that measured by DSA. These findings indicate that 3D BB-MRI has the potential to become an alternative imaging approach in evaluating the severity of carotid atherosclerotic disease.

Bram F. Coolen¹, Dennis F.R. Heijtel¹, Wouter V. Potters¹, and Aart J. Nederveen^1
1Department of Radiology, Academic Medical Center Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands

A novel method for 3D carotid artery T1 quantification is presented, based on combining 3D Merge black-blood imaging with a variable flip angle T1 analysis. The application of a dummy pulse train following read-out ensures steady-state conditions for the acquired data, which is needed for correct T1 estimation. Simulations, phantom and in vivo measurements were performed to assess the feasibility of the proposed method.

Khaled Z. Abd-Elmoniem¹, Ahmed M. Gharib¹, and Roderic I. Pettigrew^2
1National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, NIH, Bethesda, MD, United States, ²National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering, NIH, Bethesda, MD, United States

Technical challenges still hinder coronary wall imaging for routine clinical utilization. The purpose of this study was to develop a time-resolved acquisition of phase-sensitive DIR (TRAPD) coronary vessel wall MRI that overcomes the loss of the orthogonality due to uncompensated residual motions

Paula Montesinos^1,2, Himanshu Bhat³, Guangping Dai⁴, Manuel Desco^1,2, Elfar Adalsteinsson⁵, Reza Nezafat⁶, and David E. Sosnovik^5
1Departamento de Bioingeniería e Ingeniería Aeroespacial, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Madrid, Spain, ²Instituto de Investigación Sanitaria Gregorio Marañón (IiSGM), Madrid, Spain, ³Siemens Medical Solutions, Charlestown, MA, United States, ⁴Massachusetts General Hospital, Charlestown, MA, United States, ⁵Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Charlestown, MA, United States, ⁶Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, United States

The requirements for the accurate classification of human coronary atherosclerotic plaque by MRI in vivo remain unknown. We aimed here to reconstruct a high resolution ex vivo “ground truth” dataset of human coronary atherosclerotic plaques with varying degrees of spatial resolution, SNR and motion. Our results indicate that a spatial resolution of 0.5 mm, SNR > 10 and motion correction in all 3 directions are needed for in vivo MRI of coronary plaque. We further show that the acquisition of the central 10-15% of k-space during a motion-free breathold could reduce artifacts even further.

Brigit den Adel^1,2, Sandra Bovens³, Ernst Suidgeest⁴, Gustav J. Strijkers⁵, Gerard Pasterkamp³, Robert E. Poelmann², and Louise van der Weerd^4,6
1Pathology, Amsterdam Medical Center, Amsterdam, Netherlands, ²Anatomy, Leiden University Medical Center, Leiden, Netherlands, ³Cardiology, University Medical Center Utrecht, Utrecht, Netherlands, ⁴Radiology, Leiden University Medical Center, Leiden, Netherlands, ⁵Biomedical Engineering, Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven, Netherlands,⁶Human Genetics, Leiden University Medical Center, Leiden, Netherlands

This study shows the theragnostic imaging and treatment of atherosclerotis in ApoE-/- and ApoE-/-eNOS-/- mice. The application of non-invasive molecular imaging to monitor drug delivery and therapeutic responses. Rosiglitazone was incorporated in micelles to improve targeting to plaques and reduce the well-known side effects of this drug. Atherosclerotic lesions were reduced after micelle-mediated rosiglitazone therapy, while avoiding the negative side effects associated with conventional rosiglitazone treatment.