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Updated: Jun 9, 2026
Multimodal Study of Murine Cardiovascular Remodeling: Four-Dimensional Ultrasound and Mass Spectrometry Imaging
Published on: January 10, 2025
Imaging biomarkers of cardiovascular disease
Jinnan Wang1, Niranjan Balu, Gador Canton
1Department of Radiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.
Insights
Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) offers a noninvasive method to assess cardiovascular disease (CVD) by evaluating atherosclerotic plaque characteristics beyond simple stenosis, aiding in risk prediction and treatment monitoring.
Area of Science:
- Cardiovascular Imaging
- Biomedical Engineering
- Radiology
Background:
- Cardiovascular disease (CVD) poses a significant global health burden.
- Current risk prediction models for atherosclerosis often fall short due to reliance on stenosis measurement alone.
- Novel imaging techniques are crucial for understanding atherosclerosis progression and identifying new risk predictors.
Purpose of the Study:
- To review Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) techniques for evaluating atherosclerotic vessel walls.
- To discuss imaging biomarkers derived from MRI for assessing plaque burden, composition, and activity.
- To explore the validation and clinical applications of plaque MRI.
Main Methods:
- Review of various in vivo MRI techniques applied to atherosclerotic plaques.
- Discussion of imaging-based measurements (imaging biomarkers) for plaque characterization.
- Validation of MRI accuracy against histological data.
Main Results:
- In vivo MRI can noninvasively assess multiple atherosclerotic plaque biomarkers, including luminal stenosis, plaque burden, tissue composition, and activity.
- MRI accuracy in evaluating plaque characteristics has been validated against histology with high reproducibility.
- Plaque MRI enables detailed assessment of disease progression and therapeutic response.
Conclusions:
- MRI is a powerful tool for noninvasive evaluation of atherosclerotic vessel walls.
- Validated MRI biomarkers can improve cardiovascular risk prediction and monitor treatment efficacy.
- Plaque MRI holds significant potential for epidemiological studies and clinical trials in cardiovascular disease.
Abstract:
Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. Current clinical techniques that rely on stenosis measurement alone appear to be insufficient for risk prediction in atherosclerosis patients. Many novel imaging methods have been developed to study atherosclerosis progression and to identify new features that can predict future clinical risk. MRI of atherosclerotic vessel walls is one such method. It has the ability to noninvasively evaluate multiple biomarkers of the disease such as luminal stenosis, plaque burden, tissue composition and plaque activity. In addition, the accuracy of in vivo MRI has been validated against histology with high reproducibility, thus paving the way for application to epidemiological studies of disease pathogenesis and, by serial MRI, in monitoring the efficacy of therapeutic intervention. In this review, we describe the various MR techniques used to evaluate aspects of plaque progression, discuss imaging-based measurements (imaging biomarkers), and also detail their validation. The application of plaque MRI in clinical trials as well as emerging imaging techniques used to evaluate plaque compositional features and biological activities are also discussed.
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