A local excitation magnetic resonance imaging method for intracranial unruptured aneurysm at the distal internal carotid artery.

UNLABELLED

It is often difficult to diagnose an intracranial aneurysm at the distal internal carotid artery by conventional magnetic resonance imaging.

PURPOSE

We assessed the effectiveness of the local excitation technique, a new application for magnetic resonance imaging, to clarify the geometric structure of aneurysm and adjacent branches at the distal internal carotid artery.

STUDY DESIGN

Two independent evaluators diagnosed 10 cases of suspected aneurysms at the distal internal carotid artery by T2-weighted magnetic resonance imaging with application of local excitation, adding it to conventional time-of-flight-magnetic resonance angiography.

FINDINGS

We successfully distinguished the aneurysm from infundibular dilatation in five of 10 cases.

CONCLUSION

Our results suggested that addition of local excitation to conventional magnetic resonance angiography was effective to diagnose unruptured aneurysm at the distal internal carotid artery, to clarify the configuration of the prominent lesion or whether the location of the adjacent branch orifice on the parent vessel was symmetric or asymmetric.