Synopsis

Keywords: Image acquisition: Quantification, Cardiovascular: Atherosclerosis, Cross-organ: Inflammation

Inflammation's role in vascular disease development necessitates its detection and quantification for diagnosis and risk assessment. MRI contrast agents have aided in identifying vessel wall inflammation, from atherosclerosis to vasculitis. Challenges persist in quantitatively assessing inflammation due to vascular bed differences, spatial resolution, acquisition limitations, and contrast agent properties. Recent technical advancements address these challenges, such as linking dynamic contrast enhancement to plaque inflammation, improved DCE analysis, diverse contrast media applications, and image analysis tools integrating anatomical and vascular inflammation assessments. These advancements hold clinical significance and promise for future progress in managing vascular disease.

Inflammation plays a key role in vascular disease development. Thus, detection and quantitation of inflammation is essential for vascular disease diagnosis and risk assessment. Applications of MRI contrast agents have played a key role in vessel wall inflammation detection, from atherosclerosis, to aneurysms, to vasculitis. Techniques for quantitative and specific assessment of vessel wall inflammation remain challenging due to differences in vascular beds, spatial resolution, limitation of acquisition window, as well as contrast agent properties. This talk will introduce several recent technical developments for quantitative assessment of vessel wall inflammation. Using pathology of atherosclerotic disease as background, we first describe techniques that link dynamic contrast enhancement with atherosclerotic plaque inflammation. We then cover technical advancements in DCE analysis, including applications in aneurysm and vasculitis, as well as different contrast media that expands the applications of vessel wall inflammation quantitation. Image analysis tools that link anatomical and vascular inflammation assessments will also be discussed. Inflammation quantitation in vascular disease has extensive clinical applications and potential for future advancements.

Acknowledgements

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References

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