From carotid atherosclerosis plaque to brain in a single routine clinical MRI study at high field
- J-C Ferré1,
- J-F Heautot1,
- S Saikali2,
- J-Y Gauvrit1
- 1Department of Neuroradiology, University Hospital of Rennes, France
- 2Department of Pathology, University Hospital of Rennes, France
- Correspondence to Professor J-Y Gauvrit, Department of Neuroradiology, CHU Pontchaillou, 2 rue Henri Le Guilloux, 35000 Rennes, France; jean-yves.gauvrit{at}chu-rennes.fr
- Accepted 23 December 2008
A 74 year-old man who had undergone left carotid endarterectomy 1 year earlier was followed-up for right asymptomatic internal carotid stenosis. The patient did not report any transient ischaemic attack or stroke appropriate to the distribution of the index carotid artery.
A clinical whole body MRI (Philips Achieva 3T) was performed with a 16 channel neurovascular array coil (fig 1). In a single study, MRI of the brain showed no acute infarction (fig 2A), contrast enhanced MR angiography (CE-MRA) of the cervical and intracranial arteries showed severe right internal carotid stenosis (fig 2B) and a standardised protocol of the carotid artery plaque, with transverse images including four different imaging parameters (fig …
