USC Stevens Neuroimaging and Informatics Institute, Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California, USA.
Department of Neurology, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California, USA.
Magn Reson Med. 2021 Jul;86(1):442-455. doi: 10.1002/mrm.28677. Epub 2021 Feb 5.
Increased arterial stiffness has been shown to be one of the earliest markers of cerebrovascular dysfunction. As a surrogate marker of arterial stiffness, pulse wave velocity (PWV) quantifications are generally carried out on central and peripheral arteries. The purpose of this study was to develop and evaluate an MRI approach to assess carotid stiffness by measuring carotid PWV (cPWV) using a fast oblique-sagittal phase-contrast MRI sequence.
In 29 volunteers, a single-slice oblique-sagittal phase-contrast MRI sequence with retrospective cardiac gating was used to quantify blood velocity waveforms along a vessel segment covering the common carotid artery (CCA) and the internal carotid artery (ICA). The CCA-ICA segment length was measured from a region of interest selected on the magnitude image. Phase-contrast MRI-measured velocities were also used to quantify the ICA pulsatility index along with cPWV quantification.
The mean value of cPWV calculated using the middle upslope area algorithm was 2.86 ± 0.71 and 3.97 ± 1.14 m/s in young and elderly subjects, respectively. Oblique-sagittal phase-contrast MRI-derived cPWV measurements showed excellent intrascan and interscan repeatability. cPWV and ICA pulsatility index were significantly greater in older subjects compared to those in the young subjects (P < .01 and P = .01, respectively). Also, increased cPWV values were associated with elevated systolic blood pressure (β = 0.05, P = .03).
This study demonstrated that oblique-sagittal phase-contrast MRI is a feasible technique for the quantification of both cPWV and ICA pulsatility index and showed their potential utility in evaluating cerebroarterial aging and age-related neurovascular disorders.
动脉僵硬度的增加已被证明是脑血管功能障碍的最早标志物之一。作为动脉僵硬度的替代标志物，脉搏波速度（PWV）的定量通常在中心和外周动脉上进行。本研究旨在开发和评估一种 MRI 方法，通过使用快速斜矢状相位对比 MRI 序列测量颈动脉 PWV（cPWV）来评估颈动脉僵硬度。
在 29 名志愿者中，使用具有回顾性心脏门控的单次斜矢状相位对比 MRI 序列来量化覆盖颈总动脉（CCA）和颈内动脉（ICA）的血管段的血流速度波形。从在幅度图像上选择的感兴趣区域测量 CCA-ICA 节段长度。相位对比 MRI 测量的速度也用于量化 ICA 搏动指数以及 cPWV 定量。
使用中间上斜率面积算法计算的 cPWV 的平均值分别为年轻受试者和老年受试者的 2.86±0.71 和 3.97±1.14 m/s。斜矢状相位对比 MRI 衍生的 cPWV 测量值具有出色的扫描内和扫描间可重复性。与年轻受试者相比，老年受试者的 cPWV 和 ICA 搏动指数明显更高（P<0.01 和 P=0.01）。此外，cPWV 值的增加与收缩压升高相关（β=0.05，P=0.03）。
本研究表明，斜矢状相位对比 MRI 是一种可行的技术，可用于定量测量 cPWV 和 ICA 搏动指数，并显示它们在评估脑动脉老化和与年龄相关的神经血管疾病方面的潜在用途。
