Comparison of carotid vessel wall area measurements using three different contrast-weighted black blood MR imaging techniques

Measuring carotid artery plaque burden from MRI is a reliable method for mo nitoring regression and progression of atherosclerosis. However, to measure all available images would be very time consuming, and in practice the ima ge quality (IQ) of these images may be inconsistent, which can directly imp act the quality of measurement. It is hypothesized that if IQ is comparable among different contrast weighted images, then carotid artery area measure ments obtained from different contrast images of the same location will pro duce identical results. To test this, T1, proton density and T2 weighted im ages were acquired from ten patients (51 +/-7 years old). Carotid lumen and vessel wall area was measured using a custom designed software program. Th e results showed strong agreement evidenced with only small differences on both lumen (mean: 40.5 mm(2)) and wall (mean: 52.6 mm(2)) area measurement among different weighted images. The maximum absolute mean differences are less than 2.7 mm(2) and 4.4 mm(2) and 90(th) percentile of the absolute dif ferences are 5.6 mm(2) and 8.2 mm(2) respectively. In conclusion. different contrast weighted images with high and comparable IQ will yield similar re sults in lumen and vessel wall area measurement. At each matched location, it is recommended that the image with the highest IQ be used for area measu rement. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.