The Study Value Of High-resolution MRI In Determining The Stability Of Intracranial MCA And BA Plaques

Objective:To study the High-Resolution MRI imaging characteristics of intracranial MCA and BA plaques,to determine the stability of early intracranial MCA and BA plaques and improve the detection rate of symptomatic intracranial plaques.Method:We retrospectively analyzed 87 patients with acute ischemic stroke who visited the department of neurology of jilin university from January 2015 to December 2017.General data of patients were recorded,including age,gender,onset symptoms,onset position,history of blood glucose at admission,history of atrial fibrillation and other general medical history,as well as specific parameters such as plaque number,plaque location,plaque classification,plaque eccentricity index and plaque range.All the imaging results were interpreted and measured by two experienced neuroimaging doctors who did not know the patients information.All patients had at least one MCA or BA plaque identified with an early or mild(< 50% stenosis)atherosclerosis with an MCA or BA plaque.The eccentricity index and plaque range of MCA and BA plaques were compared using MRI-Plaque View TM,and multilevel analysis was performed.SPSS 19.0 statistical software(SPSS,IBM,West Grove,PA,USA)was used for statistical analysis of the data.The quantitative data were expressed as mean SD.Qualitative data are expressed as quantity and percentage.For quantitative data,t-test(for normally distributed data)or mann-whitney U test was used,and chi-square test was used for qualitative data.P<0.05 was considered statistically significant.Results:A total of 87 patients with 116 plaques were included in this study.There were 80 plaques located in the MCA and 36 plaques located in the BA.Among the 86 MCA plaques,22 were classified as symptomatic,7 were indeterminate,and 51 were asymptomatic.Among the 36 BA plaques,13 were symptomatic,14 were indeterminate,and 9 were asymptomatic.Among all plaques,the eccentricity index of symptomatic plaques and the other rest(indeterminate and asymptomatic plaques)was 0.612±0.168,0.490±0.169(p=0.0005),and the plaque range was 125.9 ±20.40,143.4 ±23.62(p < 0.001).Conclusion:There was no significant difference between the included MCA and BA symptomatic plaques and other plaques in this study(P>0.05).In this study,the characteristics of MCA and BA plaques in the early and middle stages included in the group were manifested as the symptomatic plaques prone to stroke with higher eccentricity index and smaller plaque range,which to some extent could reflect the stability characteristics of MCA and BA plaques in northern China.