Carotid atherosclerotic plaques are vital culprit factor of cerebral infarction.^1,2 We used the quadruple inversion recovery (QIR) sequence to acquire high-resolution enhanced MR images to evaluate carotid atherosclerotic plaques and their vulnerability. We also evaluated the quality of enhanced MRI images acquired with QIR.All the subjects gave written informed consent to participate the study, which was approved by the local ethical committee. Eighteen patients with carotid plaques were included in our study. All these patients were scanned with a 3.0T Discovery 750 MR scanner ((GE Healthcare, Milwaukee, WI) with an eight-channel phased-array neck surface coil (Chengguang, Shanghai, China). Our protocol included a 2D time-of-flight MR angiography (2D-TOF MRA), axial fast SE T2WI, axial FSE T1 weighted images and enhanced T1 weighted images acquired with the QIR technique around carotid bifurcation. Two independent radiologists evaluated carotid plaque morphology (wall border, fibrous cap and lipid-rich necrotic core). Image quantitative measurements included signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR).We found 25 carotid plaques in these eighteen patients with 40-99% stenosis degree. Both readers gave their scores of enhanced QIR T1weighted images (p＞0.05). SNRs were evaluated as 109±21 and 113±18 (p＞0.05) before and after the contrast enhancement. And CNRs were 98±19 and 82±22 (p＞0.05) for the same comparison.Gd-enhanced QIR for carotid plaque imaging can achieve high quality due to good inhibition of blood flow.