Department of Diagnostic Radiology, University of Freiburg, Germany.
J Magn Reson Imaging. 2010 Feb;31(2):470-4. doi: 10.1002/jmri.22047.
To evaluate the diagnostic value of T2-weighted radial MR imaging for the detection of superficial cranial arteries' inflammatory involvement in patients with giant cell arteritis (GCA).
Forty-three patients with suspected giant cell arteritis underwent 3 Tesla (T) high-field MRI. T2-weighted inversion recovery (IR) fast spin echo images with radial sampling (BLADE-technique) were acquired and compared with postcontrast T1-weighted spin echo images.
T2-weighted images revealed mural edema in the superficial cranial arteries in 11 patients in concordance with severe inflammatory contrast enhancement in T1-weighted images (grade 4 in a 4-point ranking scale). Excellent correlation (r = 0.82; P < 0.001) of measured wall thickness in T1- and T2-weighted images was achieved.
The results of this study indicate the potential of radial T2 weighted imaging for a first detection of inflammatory changes in the small superficial cranial arteries without the need for contrast medium. Future studies are needed to evaluate the influence of spatial resolution of the T2 images and to improve the detection of moderate GCA related changes in vessel inflammation.
评估 T2 加权径向磁共振成像在检测巨细胞动脉炎（GCA）患者颅表动脉炎症浸润中的诊断价值。
43 例疑似 GCA 患者接受了 3T 高场 MRI 检查。采集 T2 加权反转恢复（IR）快速自旋回波图像（BLADE 技术），并与对比增强后 T1 加权自旋回波图像进行比较。
T2 加权图像显示 11 例患者颅表动脉壁水肿与 T1 加权图像重度炎症强化一致（4 分评分标准的 4 级）。T1 加权和 T2 加权图像测量的壁厚度之间具有极好的相关性（r = 0.82；P < 0.001）。
本研究结果表明，径向 T2 加权成像具有无需造影剂即可首次检测小颅表动脉炎症改变的潜力。未来的研究需要评估 T2 图像的空间分辨率的影响，并改善对中等程度 GCA 相关血管炎症改变的检测。
