ADVANCES IN NONNUCLEAR IMAGING TECHNOLOGIES Cardiovascular magnetic resonance imaging of coronary atherothrombosis

SUMMARY Atherothrombosis, defined as atherosclerotic lesiondisruption with superimposed thrombus formation, is themajor cause of acute coronary syndromes and cardiovas-cular death. CMR imaging of coronary atherothrombosisis challenging because of the small caliber of the vesselscombined with respiratory and cardiac motion. Free-breathing 3D CMR coronary vessel wall imaging has Figure 3. A , Reformatted coronary MR image from coronal 3Ddata set shows subrenal aorta 20 hours after EP-1873 admin-istrationinarabbitmodelofatherosclerosisandplaquerupture.Three well-delineated mural thrombi ( arrows ) can be observed,with good contrast between thrombus ( numbered ), arterialblood ( dotted arrow ), and vessel wall ( dashed arrow ). Thein-plane view of the aorta allows simultaneous display of allthrombi, showing head, tail, length, and relative location. B , C ,and D , Corresponding cross-sectional views show good agree-ment with histopathology ( E , F , and G ). (Reproduced withpermission from reference 44.)