RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Assessment of Attenuation in Pericarotid Fat among Patients with Carotid Plaque and Spontaneous Carotid Dissection
JF American Journal of Neuroradiology
JO Am. J. Neuroradiol.
FD American Society of Neuroradiology
SP 259
OP 264
DO 10.3174/ajnr.A8546
VO 46
IS 2
A1 Alalfi, Mohammed O.
A1 Cau, Riccardo
A1 Argiolas, Giovanni Maria
A1 Scicolone, Roberta
A1 Mantini, Cesare
A1 Nardi, Valentina
A1 Benson, John C.
A1 Suri, Jasjit S.
A1 Keser, Zafer
A1 Lerman, Amir
A1 Lanzino, Giuseppe
A1 Siotto, Paolo
A1 Saba, Luca
YR 2025
UL http://www.ajnr.org/content/46/2/259.abstract
AB BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Changes in perivascular fat density (PFD) and its association with inflammation have been topics of interest in both atherosclerotic and nonatherosclerotic vasculopathies. The objective of this study was to assess the PFD in patients with spontaneous internal carotid artery dissection (SICAD) or carotid atherosclerotic plaque, with and without intraplaque hemorrhage (IPH).MATERIALS AND METHODS: A cross-sectional retrospective bicentric analysis of 130 patients (30 with SICAD and 100 with carotid atherosclerotic plaque) who underwent CT angiography was performed. Among the subjects with atherosclerotic plaque, 36 showed the presence of IPH. PFD analysis was performed by 2 radiologists who placed 2 ROIs to identify the perivascular fat tissue attenuation. The Mann-Whitney U test was conducted to evaluate the difference between patient cohorts.RESULTS: Carotid arteries with SICAD and IPH demonstrated an average PFD of −68.97 HU (95% CI, −72.11 to −65.82 HU) and −69.97 HU (95% CI, −73.00 to −66.95 HU), respectively, in comparison with patients without IPH, who showed an average PFD −77.11 HU (95% CI,−78.78 to −75.44 HU) (P < .001 for both). Conversely, no significant differences were found between patients with SICAD and those with carotid plaque with IPH (P = .324).CONCLUSIONS: The average PFDs in patients with SICAD and carotid atherosclerosis plaque with IPH were similar and higher than those in patients with carotid plaque without IPH. This finding suggests a shared pathologic inflammatory mechanism in these 2 conditions. Studies comparing pathologic specimens directly with radiologic images may be needed to confirm this indirect hypothesis.ICCintraclass correlation coefficientIPHintraplaque hemorrhagePFDperivascular fat densitySICADspontaneous internal carotid artery dissection