Quantitative measurement of atheroma burden: reproducibility in serial studies of atherosclerotic femoral arteries

摘要

Objectives This study aims to evaluate the reproducibility of measures of plaque morphology in serially acquired black-blood MRI of untreated atherosclerotic femoral arteries.Materials and methods MR studies was obtained from 42 timepoints,on 12 patients with known femoral artery atherosclerosis.Images with a 3D isotropic FLASH with DANTE-prepared black blood contrast (DASH) at a 3-T scanner were acquired at baseline,within 1 week,and at 1 month.Six of the patients were scanned additionally at 6 months.Inter-scan and inter-observer variations of arterial area/volume measurements were evaluated.Results Measurement of vessel area,lumen area,wall area and wall volume showed inter-scan intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC) ranging from 0.92 to 0.97 for 3 scans,0.91-0.97 for 4 scans,and inter-observer ICCs of 0.89-0.96.Among 3 scans,the coefficients of variance (CV) for the vessel area,lumen area,wall area and wall volume were 4.1%,6.5%,7.5%,and 4.4%.CVs among 4 scans ranged from 4.4% to 7.9%,and interobserver CVs ranged from 6.1% to 11.8% for the different area/volume measurements.Conclusion DASH MRI is useful for quantifying atherosclerotic vessel area and volume of femoral arteries with low variability among serial repeated scans and between observers.