[Quantitative measurement of carotid atherosclerotic plaque by high-resolution three- dimensional black-blood magnetic resonance imaging].

Objective To assess the value of high-resolution three-dimensional black-blood magnetic resonance imaging(3D-BB-MRI) in quantitative measurement of carotid atherosclerotic plaque by comparison with two-dimensional black-blood magnetic resonance imaging(2D-BB-MRI).Methods Forty patients were scanned with routine 2D and oblique-sagittal 3D-BB-MRI.The original oblique-sagittal 3D images were reformatted to an axial 2D-like dataset.Two experienced radiologists identified the interested slice in consensus for every patient(unilateral carotid artery) in 2D-BB-MRI images and matched the axial reformatted 3D images with 2D black-blood images.Plaque thickness(PT),lumen area(LA) and total vessel area(TVA) were measured,and lumen stenosis(LS) and normalized wall index(NWI) were calculated.Results There was no measurement difference between 2D-BB-MRI and reformatted 3D-BB-MRI(P0.05),and these two methods had a good correlation(r0.9).The Bland-Altman chart showed that 2D-BB-MRI and 3D-BB-MRI were in good agreement in the measurement of PT,LA and TVA.Conclusion 3D-BB-MRI and 2D-BB-MRI have no obvious difference in quantitative measurement of the carotid plaques.3D-BB-MRI can demonstrate the vessels and plaques by multiplanar reconstruction and thus have better performance in evaluating carotid atherosclerosis compared with 2D-BB-MRI.