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Comparison of 7 T and 3 T vessel wall MRI for the evaluation of intracranial aneurysm wall

  • Vascular-Interventional
  • Published:
European Radiology Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Objectives

To compare the visibility of intracranial aneurysm wall and thickness quantification between 7 and 3 T vessel wall imaging and evaluate the association between aneurysm size and wall thickness.

Methods

Twenty-nine patients with 29 unruptured intracranial aneurysms were prospectively recruited for 3D T1-weighted vessel wall MRI at both 3 T and 7 T with 0.53 mm (3 T) and 0.4 mm (7 T) isotropic resolution, respectively. Two neuroradiologists independently evaluated wall visibility (0–5 Likert scale), quantified the apparent wall thickness (AWT) using a semi-automated full-width-half-maximum method, calculated wall sharpness, and measured the wall-to-lumen contrast ratio (CRwall/lumen).

Results

Twenty-four patients with 24 aneurysms were included in this study. 7 T achieved significantly better aneurysm wall visibility than 3 T (3.6 ± 1.1 vs 2.7 ± 0.8, p = 0.003). AWT measured on 3 T and 7 T had a good correlation (averaged r = 0.63 ± 0.19). However, AWT on 3 T was 15% thicker than that on 7 T (0.52 ± 0.07 mm vs 0.45 ± 0.05 mm, p < 0.001). Wall sharpness on 7 T was 57% higher than that on 3 T (1.95 ± 0.32 mm−1 vs 1.24 ± 0.15 mm−1, p < 0.001). CRwall/lumen on 3 T and 7 T was comparable (p = 0.424). AWT on 7 T was positively correlated with aneurysm size (saccular: r = 0.58, q = 0.046; fusiform: r = 0.67, q = 0.049).

Conclusions

7 T provides better visualization of intracranial aneurysm wall with higher sharpness than 3 T. 3 T overestimates the wall thickness relative to 7 T. Aneurysm wall thickness is positively correlated with aneurysm size. 7 T MRI is a promising tool to evaluate aneurysm wall in vivo.

Key Points

• 7 T provides better visualization of intracranial aneurysm wall with higher sharpness than 3 T.

• 3 T overestimates the wall thickness comparing with 7 T.

• Aneurysm wall thickness is positively correlated with aneurysm size.

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Abbreviations

AWT:

Apparent wall thickness

CRwall/lumen :

Wall-to-lumen contrast ratio

FWHM:

Half-width at half maximum

IA:

Intracranial aneurysm

MIP:

Maximum Intensity Projection

VWI:

High-resolution vessel wall imaging

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Acknowledgements

We thank Dr. Jing An (Siemens Shenzhen Magnetic Resonance Ltd) for her effort on MRI technical support. We sincerely thank all the patients and health care workers who participated in this study.

Funding

This study has received funding by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (82001804, 81901197), the Natural Science Foundation of Beijing Municipality (7191003), the Ministry of Science and Technology of China (2019YFA0707103), and the Chinese Academy of Sciences (XDB32010300). Chengcheng Zhu is supported by the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant R00HL136883.

Author information

Author notes

  1. Junqiang Feng and Xinke Liu equally contributed to the study.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Interventional Neuroradiology, Beijing Neurosurgical Institute and Beijing Tiantan Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing, China

    Junqiang Feng, Xinke Liu, Yuhua Jiang, Wei You, Peng Liu & Youxiang Li

  2. State Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Science, Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 15 Datun Road, Beijing, 100101, China

    Zihao Zhang, Yue Wu & Zhixin Li

  3. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, 19A Yuquan Road, Beijing, 100049, China

    Zihao Zhang, Yue Wu & Zhixin Li

  4. CAS Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology, Beijing, 100049, China

    Zihao Zhang, Yue Wu & Zhixin Li

  5. Center for Biomedical Imaging Research, Department of Biomedical Engineering, School of Medicine, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China

    Qiang Zhang

  6. Department of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, USA

    Yan Wang & David Saloner

  7. Department of Radiology, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA

    Mahmud Mossa-Basha & Chengcheng Zhu

Authors
  1. Junqiang Feng
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Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Zihao Zhang or Youxiang Li.

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Guarantor

The scientific guarantor of this publication is Youxiang Li.

Conflict of interest

The authors of this manuscript declare no relationships with any companies whose products or services may be related to the subject matter of the article.

Statistics and biometry

One of the authors has significant statistical expertise.

Informed consent

Written informed consent was obtained from all subjects (patients) in this study.

Ethical approval

Institutional Review Board approval was obtained.

Study subjects or cohorts overlap

Some study subjects or cohorts have been previously reported in “Wall enhancement of intracranial saccular and fusiform aneurysms may differ in intensity and extension: a pilot study using 7-T high-resolution black-blood MRI. Eur Radiol 2020;30(1):301–307” and “Quantitative analysis of unruptured intracranial aneurysm wall thickness and enhancement using 7 T high-resolution, black-blood magnetic resonance imaging. J NeuroIntervent Surg 2021;0:1–7.”

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Cite this article

Feng, J., Liu, X., Zhang, Z. et al. Comparison of 7 T and 3 T vessel wall MRI for the evaluation of intracranial aneurysm wall. Eur Radiol 32, 2384–2392 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00330-021-08331-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00330-021-08331-9

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