Noninvasive in vivo human coronary artery lumen and wall imaging using black-blood magnetic resonance imaging

Background-High-resolution MRI has the potential to noninvasively image the human coronary artery wall and define the degree and nature of coronary ar tery disease. Coronary artery imaging by MR has been limited by artifacts r elated to blood flow and motion and by low spatial resolution. Methods and Results-We used a noninvasive black-blood (BB) MRI (BB-MR) meth od, free of motion and blood-now artifacts, for high-resolution (down to 0. 46 mm in-plane resolution and 3-mm slice thickness) imaging or the coronary artery lumen and wall. in vivo BE-MR of both normal and atherosclerotic hu man coronary arteries was performed in 13 subjects: 8 normal subjects and 5 patients with coronary artery disease. The average coronary wall thickness for each cross-sectional image was 0.75+/-0.17 mm (range, 0.55 to 1.0 mm) in the normal subjects. MR images of coronary arteries in patients with gre ater than or equal to 40% stenosis as assessed by x-ray angiography showed localized wall thickness of 4.38+/-0.71 mm (range. 3.30 to 5,73 mm). The di fference in maximum wall thickness between the normal subjects and patients was statistically significant (P<0.0001), Conclusions-In vivo high-spatial-resolution BE-MR provides a unique new met hod to noninvasively image and assess the morphological features of human c oronary arteries. This may allow the identification of atherosclerotic dise ase before it is symptomatic. Further studies are necessary to identify the different plaque components and to assess lesions in asymptomatic patients and their outcomes.