诊断法：3-D磁共振成像帮助发现高风险颈动脉疾病

研究者使用3维磁共振成像去准确的发现颈动脉壁上出血，一个会引发中风的情况

当主动脉受到动脉粥样硬化，脂肪沉积物，和积累在血管壁内部的斑块的影响。这一系列的疾病随着时间导致血管窄化，限制血液流动或者导致血管完全被堵塞。直到最近科学研究者相信这种称之为狭窄的窄化现象是导致大多数心脏病和中风的原因。但是新的研究显示混合的结构复杂的斑块是形成脉管病症和死亡的主因。这些斑块有表面溃疡，血块和在血管壁内出血的特征“在我们的研究中将有一个巨大的改变” 多伦多大学的艾伦.R.穆迪先生谈到：“我们现在已经知道颈动脉中混合斑块可能是导致中风的前兆，并且数量超过血管狭窄。”
这个最新的研究结果提出3-D磁共振成像技术可能被证明能是一种对判断有高中风风险的患者有用的影像工具。在研究中研究者使用3—D磁共振成像对11名年龄在60-81的颈动脉疾病患者进行了试验。这些颈动脉斑块通过手术从这些患者的患病动脉被取出并通过显微镜进行了分析。
这个研究小组发现被磁共振识别的病变器官和用显微镜分析的组织样本高度一致。“用高分辨率的3-D磁共振技术，我们可以不通过介入去分析动脉壁内的组织，并发现也许会导致患者中风风险的在斑块内的细微的出血”穆迪谈到。
根据穆迪所介绍，3-D磁共振成像是一个理想用于筛选高风险结构复杂的颈动脉斑块的患者的工具并且监测介入的影响，减缓动脉粥样硬化疾病的发展。这项技术可以简单的被说明和应用。加载到血管造影技术研究只需要几分钟的时间。

Diagnosis: 3-D MRI Finds High-Risk Carotid Disease

Researchers have used three-dimensional magnetic resonance imaging (3-D MRI) to accurately detect bleeding within the walls of diseased carotid arteries, a condition that may lead to a stroke.
When major arteries are affected by atherosclerosis, fatty deposit, or plaques, accumulate on the inner lining of the vessel walls. Progression of the disease over time leads to narrowing, restricting blood flow or becoming completely blocked. Until recently, scientists believed that this narrowing, called stenosis, was responsible for most heart attacks or strokes.

But new studies have identified the composition of complicated plaques as being a major cause of vascular events and deaths. These plaques are characterised by surface ulcerations, blood clots and bleeding into the vessel wall. "There's been a major sea change in our research," said Alan R. Moody of the University of Toronto. "We now know that the composition of carotid artery plaque is likely to be more predictive of future stroke events than the amount of stenosis in the vessel."

The results of the new study suggest the 3-D MRI technique may prove to be a useful screening tool for patients at high risk for stroke. In the study, researchers performed 3-D MRI on the carotid arteries of eleven patients, age 69 to 81. Complicated plaques were then surgically removed from the patients' diseased arteries and analysed under a microscope.

The research team found strong agreement between the lesions identified by MRI as complicated plaques and the microscopic analysis of the tissue samples. "With high spatial resolution 3-D MRI, we are able to noninvasively analyse the tissue within the artery wall and identify small bleeds within rupture-prone plaques that may put patients at risk for future stroke," Moody said.

According to Moody, 3-D MRI is a tool that is ideally suited to screen high-risk patients for complicated carotid plaques and to monitor the effect of interventions designed to slow the progress of the atherosclerotic disease. The technique is easy to perform and interpret and takes only a few minutes when added to an MR angiography study, he said.