|
|
||||||||
From the University Department of Radiology (Drs. U-King-Im, Trivedi, Higgins, Cross, Antoun, and Gillard, and M.J. Graves and H. Eales) and Departments of Stroke Medicine (Dr. Warburton) and Neurosurgery (Dr. Kirkpatrick), Addenbrookes Hospital, Cambridge; Medical Research Council Biostatistics Unit (Dr. Tom), Cambridge, UK; and Department of Radiology (Dr. Hollingworth), University of Washington, Seattle.
Address correspondence and reprint requests to Dr. Jonathan H. Gillard, University Department of Radiology, Addenbrookes Hospital, Cambridge, CB2 2QQ, UK; e-mail: jhg{at}radiol.cam.ac.uk
Objective: To compare contrast-enhanced MR angiography (CEMRA) with intra-arterial digital subtraction angiography (DSA) for evaluating carotid stenosis.
Methods: A total of 167 consecutive symptomatic patients, scheduled for DSA following screening duplex ultrasound (DUS), were prospectively recruited to have CEMRA. Three independent readers reported on each examination in a blinded and random manner. Agreement was assessed using the Bland-Altman method. Diagnostic and potential clinical impact of CEMRA was evaluated, singly and in combination with DUS.
Results: CEMRA tended to overestimate stenosis by a mean bias ranging from 2.4 to 3.8%. A significant part of the disagreement between CEMRA and DSA was directly caused by interobserver variability. For detection of severe stenosis, CEMRA alone had a sensitivity of 93.0% and specificity of 80.6%, with a diagnostic misclassification rate of 15.0% (n = 30). More importantly, clinical decision-making would, however, have been potentially altered only in 6.0% of cases (n = 12). The combination of concordant DUS and CEMRA reduced diagnostic misclassification rate to 10.1% (n = 19) at the expense of 47 (24.9%) discordant cases needing to proceed to DSA. An intermediate approach of selective DUS review resulted in a marginally worse diagnostic misclassification rate of 11.6% (n = 22) but with only 6.8% of discordant cases (n = 13).
Conclusions: DSA remains the gold standard for carotid imaging. The clinical misclassification rate with CEMRA, however, is acceptably low to support its safe use instead of DSA. The appropriateness of combination strategies depends on institutional choice and cost-effectiveness issues.
Received July 24, 2003. Accepted in final form February 10, 2004.
Additional material related to this article can be found on the Neurology Web site. Go to www.neurology.org and scroll down the Table of Contents for the April 27 issue to find the title link for this article.
See also page 1246
This article has been cited by other articles:
![]() |
M. Anzidei, A. Napoli, B. C. Marincola, I. Nofroni, D. Geiger, F. Zaccagna, C. Catalano, and R. Passariello Gadofosveset-enhanced MR Angiography of Carotid Arteries: Does Steady-State Imaging Improve Accuracy of First-Pass Imaging? Comparison with Selective Digital Subtraction Angiography Radiology, May 1, 2009; 251(2): 457 - 466. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF] |
||||
![]() |
M. R Jaff, G. V Goldmakher, M. H Lev, and J. M Romero Imaging of the carotid arteries: the role of duplex ultrasonography, magnetic resonance arteriography, and computerized tomographic arteriography Vascular Medicine, November 1, 2008; 13(4): 281 - 292. [Abstract] [PDF] |
||||
![]() |
S. M. Debrey, H. Yu, J. K. Lynch, K.-O. Lovblad, V. L. Wright, S.-J. D. Janket, and A. E. Baird Diagnostic Accuracy of Magnetic Resonance Angiography for Internal Carotid Artery Disease: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis Stroke, August 1, 2008; 39(8): 2237 - 2248. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF] |
||||
![]() |
J. F. Meschia, T. G. Brott, and R. W. Hobson II Diagnosis and Invasive Management of Carotid Atherosclerotic Stenosis Mayo Clin. Proc., July 1, 2007; 82(7): 851 - 858. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF] |
||||
![]() |
J. M. U-King-Im, M. J. Graves, J. J. Cross, N. J. Higgins, J. Wat, R. A. Trivedi, T. Tang, S. P. S. Howarth, P. J. Kirkpatrick, N. M. Antoun, et al. Internal Carotid Artery Stenosis: Accuracy of Subjective Visual Impression for Evaluation with Digital Subtraction Angiography and Contrast-enhanced MR Angiography Radiology, July 1, 2007; 244(1): 213 - 222. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF] |
||||
![]() |
E. Feldmann, J. L. Wilterdink, A. Kosinski, M. Lynn, M. I. Chimowitz, J. Sarafin, H. H. Smith, F. Nichols, J. Rogg, H. J. Cloft, et al. The Stroke Outcomes and Neuroimaging of Intracranial Atherosclerosis (SONIA) Trial Neurology, June 12, 2007; 68(24): 2099 - 2106. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF] |
||||
![]() |
M. Lell, C. Fellner, U. Baum, T. Hothorn, R. Steiner, W. Lang, W. Bautz, and F.A. Fellner Evaluation of Carotid Artery Stenosis with Multisection CT and MR Imaging: Influence of Imaging Modality and Postprocessing AJNR Am. J. Neuroradiol., January 1, 2007; 28(1): 104 - 110. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF] |
||||
![]() |
V. L. Wright, W. Olan, B. Dick, H. Yu, N. Alberts-Grill, L. L. Latour, and A. E. Baird Assessment of CE-MRA for the rapid detection of supra-aortic vascular disease Neurology, July 12, 2005; 65(1): 27 - 32. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF] |
||||
![]() |
J. M. K.S. U-King-Im, R. A. Trivedi, J. J. Cross, N. J.P. Higgins, W. Hollingworth, M. Graves, I. Joubert, P. J. Kirkpatrick, N. M. Antoun, and J. H. Gillard Measuring Carotid Stenosis on Contrast-Enhanced Magnetic Resonance Angiography: Diagnostic Performance and Reproducibility of 3 Different Methods Stroke, September 1, 2004; 35(9): 2083 - 2088. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF] |
||||
![]() |
T. E. Feasby and J. M. Findlay CT angiography for the assessment of carotid stenosis Neurology, August 10, 2004; 63(3): 412 - 413. [Full Text] [PDF] |
||||
![]() |
W. J. Powers Carotid arteriography: Still golden after all these years? Neurology, April 27, 2004; 62(8): 1246 - 1247. [Full Text] [PDF] |
||||
| HOME | HELP | FEEDBACK | SUBSCRIPTIONS | ARCHIVE | SEARCH | TABLE OF CONTENTS |