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Intra‐ and interreader reproducibility of magnetic resonance imaging for quantifying the lipid‐rich necrotic core is improved with gadolinium contrast enhancement
Author(s) -
Takaya Norihide,
Cai Jianming,
Ferguson MT Marina S.,
Yarnykh Vasily L.,
Chu Baocheng,
Saam Tobias,
Polissar Nayak L.,
Sherwood Jane,
Cury Ricardo C.,
Anders Robert J.,
Broschat Kay O.,
Hinton Denise,
Furie Karen L.,
Hatsukami Thomas S.,
Yuan Chun
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
journal of magnetic resonance imaging
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.563
H-Index - 160
eISSN - 1522-2586
pISSN - 1053-1807
DOI - 10.1002/jmri.20599
Subject(s) - reproducibility , intraclass correlation , magnetic resonance imaging , medicine , nuclear medicine , stenosis , gadolinium , radiology , contrast (vision) , materials science , chemistry , computer science , chromatography , artificial intelligence , metallurgy
Purpose To test the hypothesis that intra‐ and interreader reproducibility for measuring the lipid‐rich necrotic core (LR‐NC) size is significantly improved with gadolinium (Gd) contrast‐enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (CEMRI) compared to non‐CEMRI. Materials and Methods Thirty‐seven individuals with >50% carotid artery stenosis underwent carotid MRI at 1.5T (pre‐ and postcontrast T1‐weighted (T1W), T2‐weighted (T2W), proton density‐weighted (PDW), and three‐dimensional time‐of‐flight (TOF) sequences). Two independent readers measured the mean area of the LR‐NC from the precontrast images only, followed by a second measurement using the additional postcontrast images. One reader repeated the measurements after an interval of five months. Intra‐ and interreader reproducibility was analyzed by means of the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC), coefficient of variation (CV), and standard deviation (SD). Results The CV decreased from 33.7% to 8.8% for intrareader measurements of the LR‐NC, and from 33.5% to 17.6% for interreader measurements. The SD was significantly smaller with CEMRI than with non‐CEMRI ( P = 0.003 and P = 0.006, respectively). The ICC increased from 0.94 to 0.99 and from 0.85 to 0.93 for the intra‐ and interreader measurements, respectively. Conclusion Reader reproducibility for in vivo MRI quantification of LR‐NC size is significantly improved by the addition of Gd contrast in individuals with >50% carotid stenosis. J. Magn. Reson. Imaging 2006. © 2006 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.