Imaging of the walls of saccular cerebral aneurysms with double inversion recovery black‐blood sequence

Abstract

In this study, we evaluated the wall of saccular cerebral aneurysms (SCAs) using two-dimensional double inversion recovery black-blood sequence (BBDI). We examined 14 patients with an unruptured SCA (USCA). The BBDI was peripheral-pulse gated, and was acquired during the mid-diastolic period. We evaluated whether the aneurysmal wall could be visualized with BBDI, and the wall thickness in the neck and dome portion of the aneurysm was measured in cases with acceptable imaging quality. BBDI demonstrated the USCA walls in ten patients. In four patients, the USCA walls were poorly delineated from the adjacent brain parenchyma or cerebrospinal fluid. The mean aneurysm size was 8.0 mm. The mean thickness of the aneurysmal wall in the neck portion was 0.60 AE 0.13 mm in 10 cases. The mean thickness at the dome portion was 0.46 AE 0.05 mm in five cases. In this study, BBDI revealed some portion of the USCA wall, despite the limited spatial and contrast resolution for delineation of the entire USCA wall. In our opinion, this technique may be used as an additional imaging tool for the evaluation of the aneurysmal wall.

Quantitative Assessment of Circumferential Enhancement along the Wall of Cerebral Aneurysms Using MR Imaging

“…Visualization of the aneurysm wall itself has been attempted by using various magnetic fields from 1.5T to 7T. [11][12][13] In these studies, the aneurysm wall thickness showed spatial variation within the aneurysm compared with the wall of the parent artery. The intensity of the wall is equal to the intensity of brain tissue; therefore, it is difficult to achieve complete visualization of the entire wall of the cerebral aneurysm, even by high-resolution MR imaging.…”

Intracranial Vessel Wall MRI: Principles and Expert Consensus Recommendations of the American Society of Neuroradiology

“…However, preliminary results suggest that VW-MR imaging may be a useful technique for evaluating patients with intracranial aneurysms. An initial study 79 used a 2D double inversion recovery VW-MR imaging sequence at 1.5T with a voxel size of 0.5 ϫ 0.6 ϫ 0.3 mm to image the wall of saccular aneurysms, and there have been subsequent studies of the berry aneurysm wall at 3T and 7T.…”

Giant Intracranial Aneurysms at 7T MRI

“…In view of the previously published data, spatial resolution has to be well below aneurysm wall thickness to be capable of demonstrating microstructures within the wall. The spatial resolution used in our study was 5.7-13.2 times higher compared with previous in vivo aneurysm wall studies, 10,11,[13][14][15] which was sufficient to visualize the microstructures in vivo for the first time.…”

“…In previously published in vivo aneurysm wall imaging studies, depiction of microstructures within aneurysm walls was limited by spatial resolution, [13][14][15] because wall thicknesses ranged from 20 to 500 m. 16,17 To date, there is only 1 report on intracranial vessel wall microstructures delineated with 7T MR imaging using an ultra-high ex vivo 0.11 ϫ 0.11 mm 2 resolution. 18 The study showed excellent correlation with the histopathologic findings.…”