PHASED-ARRAY MAGNETIC-RESONANCE-IMAGING OF THE CAROTID-ARTERY BIFURCATION - PRELIMINARY-RESULTS IN HEALTHY-VOLUNTEERS AND A PATIENT WITH ATHEROSCLEROTIC DISEASE

A high resolution MR imaging technique using a custom designed flexibl e phased-array surface coil was developed to examine the wall of the c arotid artery bifurcation in vivo, The phased-array consisted of two o verlapping coils which increased the image signal-to-noise ratio at th e depth of the carotid artery by approximately 70%, relative to a simi larly sized single loop coil, The imaging protocol included a 2D T1-we ighted (T1W) spin echo scan and cardiac gated TP-weighted and proton d ensity-weighted (PDW) fast spin-echo (FSE) scans. Images were obtained of six healthy volunteers and of one patient with known atherosclerot ic disease several days before carotid endarterectomy. On T1W and PDW images of the healthy volunteers, the carotid arterial wall appeared t o be comprised of two concentric rings; a high signal inner ring and a lower signal outer ring, The MR images of the patient revealed a calc ified carotid bifurcation plaque which was confirmed during surgery, T he endarterectomy specimen was imaged in vitro with MR and then sectio ned histologically for correlation with the patients in vivo images, O ur preliminary findings indicate that a high resolution technique may provide a noninvasive technique to study atherosclerosis of the caroti d bifurcation.