Physiologic and anatomic assessment of a canine carotid artery stenosis model utilizing phase contrast with vastly...

Noninvasive assessment of the hemodynamic significance of carotid stenosis is often performed with MR angiography and supplemented with carotid Doppler sonography. Phase contrast with vastly undersampled isotropic projection reconstruction (PC-VIPR), a novel MR imaging technique, accelerates phase-contrast MR flow imaging and provides both images of the vessels and measurements of blood-flow velocities. For this study, we determined the accuracy of PC-VIPR blood-flow velocity measurements to determine pressure gradients across an experimental carotid stenosis.

A focal stenosis was surgically created in each common carotid artery of 6 canines. Digital subtraction angiography (DSA) was performed, and the degree of stenosis was determined using the North American Symptomatic Carotid Endarterectomy Trial methodology. A microcatheter was positioned in the carotid artery proximal and distal to the stenosis, and pressures were measured in the vessel through the catheter. PC-VIPR was then performed on a 1.5T MR imaging scanner with parameters producing 0.8-mm isotropic voxel resolution. From the velocity measurements, pressure gradients were calculated from the Navier-Stokes relationship to compare with the pressures measured by a catheter.

Carotid stenoses in the 50%-85% range were produced in the 12 arteries. Pressure gradients across the stenoses ranged from 6 to 26 mm Hg. The pressure gradient calculated from the PC-VIPR data correlated (r = 0.91, P < .0001) with the actual pressure measurements.

With PC-VIPR, a novel MR imaging technique, the hemodynamic effect of a stenosis on flow and pressure can be evaluated.