European Heart Journal Advance Access published online on June 21, 2005
European Heart Journal, doi:10.1093/eurheartj/ehi357
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1 Russell. H. Morgan Department of Radiology and Radiologic Sciences, Johns Hopkins University Medical School, JHOC 4243, 601, North Caroline Street, Baltimore, MD 21287, USA; Department of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University Medical School, JHOC 4243, 601, North Caroline Street, Baltimore, MD 21287, USA; National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA
* To whom correspondence should be addressed. Aims Although the coronary artery vessel wall can be imaged non-invasively using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), the in vivo reproducibility of wall thickness measures has not been previously investigated. Using a refined magnetization preparation scheme, we sought to assess the reproducibility of three-dimensional (3D) free-breathing black-blood coronary MRI in vivo. Methods and results MRI vessel wall scans parallel to the right coronary artery (RCA) were obtained in 18 healthy individuals (age range 25-43, six women), with no known history of coronary artery disease, using a 3D dual-inversion navigator-gated black-blood spiral imaging sequence. Vessel wall scans were repeated 1 month later in eight subjects. The visible vessel wall segment and the wall thickness were quantitatively assessed using a semi-automatic tool and the intra-observer, inter-observer, and inter-scan reproducibilities were determined. The average imaged length of the RCA vessel wall was 44.5 ± 7 mm. The average wall thickness was 1.6 ± 0.2 mm. There was a highly significant intra-observer (r = 0.97), inter-observer (r = 0.94), and inter-scan (r = 0.90) correlation for wall thickness (all P < 0.001). There was also a significant agreement for intra-observer, inter-observer, and inter-scan measurements on Bland-Altman analysis. The intra-class correlation coefficients for intra-observer (r = 0.97), inter-observer (r = 0.92), and inter-scan (r = 0.86) analyses were also excellent. Conclusion The use of black-blood free-breathing 3D MRI in conjunction with semi-automated analysis software allows for reproducible measurements of right coronary arterial vessel-wall thickness. This technique may be well-suited for non-invasive longitudinal studies of coronary atherosclerosis.
Received January 24, 2005
Revised May 2, 2005
Accepted May 10, 2005
Clinical research
Reproducibility of 3D free-breathing magnetic resonance coronary vessel wall imaging
2 Department of Pathology, Johns Hopkins University Medical School, JHOC 4243, 601, North Caroline Street, Baltimore, MD 21287, USA
3 Institute of Biomedical Engineering, University and ETH, Zurich, Switzerland
4 Department of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University Medical School, JHOC 4243, 601, North Caroline Street, Baltimore, MD 21287, USA
5 Russell. H. Morgan Department of Radiology and Radiologic Sciences, Johns Hopkins University Medical School, JHOC 4243, 601, North Caroline Street, Baltimore, MD 21287, USA; Department of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University Medical School, JHOC 4243, 601, North Caroline Street, Baltimore, MD 21287, USA; Department of Electrical Engineering, Johns Hopkins University Medical School, JHOC 4243, 601, North Caroline Street, Baltimore, MD 21287, USA
Matthias Stuber, E-mail: mstuber{at}mri.jhu.edu
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