Shuo Chen1, Hua
Guo1, Wenchuan Wu1, Xihai Zhao1, Chun Yuan,
12, Huijun Chen1
1Center
for Biomedical Imaging Research & Department of Biomedical Engineering,
Tsinghua University, Beijing, China; 2Department of Radiology,
University of Washington, Seattle, WA, United States
Compositional characteristics of atherosclerotic plaque are believed to be linked to plaque vulnerability. As such, investigation of key plaque features might be helpful for stroke prevention. Previous studies suggested that diffusion weighted imaging (DWI) might be useful for detection of lipid-rich necrotic core. We proposed a high resolution DWI method using variable density spiral (DW-VDS) for carotid plaque detection. We found that carotid vessel wall and plaque can be successfully delineated at both diffusion weighted images and ADC maps, suggesting that DW-VDS might be an alternative method for composition identification of atherosclerotic plaque.