Investigative radiology
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Investigative radiology · Nov 2014
Seven-tesla magnetic resonance imaging of atherosclerotic plaque in the significantly stenosed carotid artery: a feasibility study.
The objective of this study was to assess the feasibility of carotid vessel wall imaging at 7.0 for T magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in a series of patients with a symptomatic greater than 70% stenosis of the internal carotid artery. ⋯ This first series of patients with carotid atherosclerotic plaque who were scanned at 7.0 T MRI shows that 7.0 T MRI enables to adequately determine lumen and vessel wall areas. Signal hyperintensity in these 7.0 T magnetic resonance images was inversely proportional to calcification. However, at this stage, no other correlations between histologic findings and vessel wall contrast were found. Implementation of in vivo high-resolution 7.0 T MRI of plaque components for risk stratification remains challenging. Future development of hardware and software is still needed to attain a more robust setup and to enable complete plaque characterization, similar to what is currently possible with multiple MRI sequences at 1.5 T and 3.0 T MRI.
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Investigative radiology · Nov 2014
Virtual monoenergetic dual-energy computed tomography: optimization of kiloelectron volt settings in head and neck cancer.
The aim of this study was to evaluate the effects on objective and subjective image quality of virtual monoenergetic reconstructions at various energy levels of dual-energy computed tomography (DECT) in patients with head and neck cancer. ⋯ Compared with linearly blended images, virtual monoenergetic reconstructions of DECT data at 60 keV significantly improve lesion enhancement and CNR, subjective overall image quality, and tumor delineation of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma.