PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - A. Lindenholz
AU  - I.C. van der Schaaf
AU  - A.G. van der Kolk
AU  - H.B. van der Worp
AU  - A.A. Harteveld
AU  - L.J. Kappelle
AU  - J. Hendrikse
TI  - MRI Vessel Wall Imaging after Intra-Arterial Treatment for Acute Ischemic Stroke
AID  - 10.3174/ajnr.A6460
DP  - 2020 Apr 01
TA  - American Journal of Neuroradiology
PG  - 624--631
VI  - 41
IP  - 4
4099  - http://www.ajnr.org/content/41/4/624.short
4100  - http://www.ajnr.org/content/41/4/624.full
SO  - Am. J. Neuroradiol.2020 Apr 01; 41
AB  - BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Vessel wall imaging is increasingly performed in the diagnostic work-up of patients with ischemic stroke. The aim of this study was to compare vessel wall enhancement after intra-arterial thrombosuction with that in patients not treated with thrombosuction.MATERIALS AND METHODS: From 2009 to 2017, forty-nine patients with an ischemic stroke underwent 7T MR imaging within 3 months after symptom onset as part of a prospective intracranial vessel wall imaging study. Fourteen of these patients underwent intra-arterial treatment using thrombosuction (intra-arterial treatment group). In the intra-arterial treatment group, vessel walls were evaluated for major vessel wall changes. All patients underwent pre- and postcontrast vessel wall imaging to assess enhancing foci of the vessel wall using coregistered subtraction images. A Wilcoxon signed rank test was performed to test for differences.RESULTS: In the intra-arterial treatment group, 11 of 14 patients (79%) showed vessel wall enhancement compared with 17 of 35 patients without intra-arterial treatment (49%). In the intra-arterial treatment group, more enhancing foci were detected on the ipsilateral side (n = 18.5) compared with the contralateral side (n = 3, P = .005). Enhancement was more often concentric on the ipsilateral side (n = 8) compared with contralateral side (n = 0, P = .01). No differences were found in the group without intra-arterial treatment between the number and configuration of ipsilateral and contralateral enhancing foci.CONCLUSIONS: Patients with intra-arterial treatment by means of thrombosuction showed more (concentric) enhancing foci of the vessel wall ipsilateral compared with contralateral to the treated artery than the patients without intra-arterial treatment, suggesting reactive changes of the vessel wall. This finding should be taken into account when assessing vessel wall MR images in patients with stroke.IATintra-arterial treatmentMPIRmagnetization prepared inversion recovery