High-resolution intracranial vessel wall imaging using 3D CUBE T1 weighted sequence

Purpose To evaluate the feasibility of high-resolution 3D CUBE T1WI for intracranial vessel wall imaging. Methods High-resolution 3D CUBE T1 weighted intracranial vessel wall images (0.4mm×0.4mm×0.4mm) of 50 patients were retrospectively evaluated. A 5-point scale (1 poor, 5 excellent) was used to score the imaging quality for displaying the vessel wall of every intracranial artery segments. The inter-observer and intra-observer reproducibility of identifying plaques, intraplaque hemorrhage/luminal thrombosis, and wall enhancement were calculated. Results Totally 893 artery segments were evaluated. 3D CUBE T1WI displayed the arteries wall and lumen clearly, with the highest score (4.920±0.837) for the C6–7 segments and the lowest (3.370±1.107) for the C3 segments of the internal carotid artery (ICA). Both intra-observer and inter-observer reproducibility were high for identification of normal walls ( κ =0.928, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.891–0.954; κ =0.911, CI 0.868–0.940), plaque ( κ =0.924, CI 0.884–0.954; κ =0.907, CI 0.866–0.943), luminal thrombosis ( κ =1.000, CI 1.000–1.000; κ =1.000, CI 1.000–1.000), and wall enhancement ( κ =1.000, CI 1.000–1.000; κ =0.914, CI 0.863–0.961). Conclusions High-resolution 3D CUBE T1WI displayed intracranial wall and lumen clearly, and detected intracranial artery abnormalities with high reproducibility.