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European Journal of Radiology 85 (2016) 534539

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

European Journal of Radiology


journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ejrad

Cortical vessel sign on susceptibility weighted imaging reveals


clinically relevant hypoperfusion in internal carotid artery stenosis
Sibu Mundiyanapurath a, , Peter A. Ringleb a , Sascha Diatschuk b,c , Sina Burth b ,
Markus Mhlenbruch b , Ralf O. Floca c , Wolfgang Wick a,d , Martin Bendszus b ,
Alexander Radbruch b,c
a
Department of Neurology, University Hospital Heidelberg, Im Neuenheimer Feld 400, 69120 Heidelberg, Germany
b
Department of Neuroradiology, University Hospital Heidelberg, Im Neuenheimer Feld 400, 69120 Heidelberg, Germany
c
German Cancer Research Center, Department of Radiology, INF 280, 69120 Heidelberg, Germany
d
CCU Neurooncology, German Cancer Consortium (DKTK) & German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ), INF 280, 69120 Heidelberg, Germany

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Background and purpose: Internal carotid artery (ICA) stenosis can lead to cerebral hypoperfusion and is a
Received 20 July 2015 common cause of stroke. As susceptibility weighted imaging (SWI) has been used for penumbra imaging
Received in revised form in acute ischemic stroke, we aimed at analyzing hypoperfusion using SWI in patients with ICA stenosis.
30 November 2015
Material and methods: Clinical characteristics, asymmetric cortical vessel sign (more and/or larger,
Accepted 24 December 2015
hypointense asymmetric cortical vessels) on SWI, Doppler sonography results and diffusion weighted
imaging (DWI) lesion volume were retrospectively analyzed in patients with ICA stenosis. In a subgroup
Keywords:
of patients, volume of prolonged time to peak and volume of prolonged time to peak of the residue
Susceptibility weighted imaging
Perfusion weighted imaging
curve (Tmax ) were measured as reference standard. Outcome was assessed as modied Rankin score at
Carotid artery stenosis discharge.
Hypoperfusion Results: 104 patients were included. Median age was 72 and median degree of stenosis 70% according to
MR NASCET. 13% had a asymmetric cortical vessel sign. These patients had a higher degree of stenosis (80% vs.
Ischemic stroke 70%, p = 0.004), were more often symptomatic (93% vs. 61%, p = 0.020) and had higher DWI volume (7.3 ml
vs. 0.2 ml, p = 0.011). Specicity for the prediction of DWI lesions was 86%. Also, patients with asymmetric
cortical vessel sign had lower rates of favorable outcome (mRS = 02; 57% vs. 82%, p = 0.033) and volumes
of Tmax 4 s, 6 s, 8 s, 10 s and TTP 2 s, 4 s, 6 s were signicantly higher. In multivariate analysis,
asymmetric cortical vessel sign was an independent negative predictor of favorable outcome (mRS 02;
OR 0.184; CI [0.039; 0.875] p = 0.033).
Conclusion: In patients with ICA stenosis, asymmetric cortical vessel sign is a sign of clinically relevant
hypoperfusion.
2015 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction While many strokes due to ICA stenosis are of embolic origin, high-
grade ICA stenosis can elicit hemodynamically caused strokes in the
Internal carotid artery (ICA) stenosis is a frequent etiology of watershed areas [2]. Perfusion weighted imaging (PWI) can be used
ischemic stroke and is estimated to affect about 13% of adults [1]. to examine the hemodynamic effects of ICA stenosis. In ICA steno-
sis, however, clinically irrelevant increases of time to peak (TTP) can
be found [3,4]. Clinicians have to deal with a considerable uncer-
tainty in how to interpret these increases. More recent parameters
Abbreviations: ACVS, asymmetric cortical vessel sign; ICA, internal carotid of perfusion weighted imaging as time to the peak of the residue
artery; DWI, diffusion weighted imaging; MRI, magnetic resonance imaging; mRS, curve (Tmax ) and TTP with thresholding and normalization demand
modied Rankin scale; NASCET, north american symptomatic carotid endarterec-
tomy trial; NIHSS, National Institute of Health Stroke Scale; PWI, perfusion weighted
a postprocessing software and are still under evaluation in larger
imaging; SWI, susceptibility weighted imaging; Tmax , time to the peak of the residue randomized trials [5]. In addition, contrast agents cannot be applied
curve; TTP, time to the peak of the tissue concentration time curve. in all patients due to contraindications, such as allergies or renal
Corresponding author. Fax: +49 6221 56 7554. failure. Therefore, alternatives for MR perfusion are needed in the
E-mail address: sibu.mundiyanapurath@med.uni-heidelberg.de evaluation of hypoperfusion in patients with carotid artery steno-
(S. Mundiyanapurath).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ejrad.2015.12.020
0720-048X/ 2015 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.
S. Mundiyanapurath et al. / European Journal of Radiology 85 (2016) 534539 535

sis. Susceptibility weighted imaging (SWI) can be used without any mRS. A mRS of 02 was dened as favorable outcome, reecting
postprocessing, can be implemented at basically any MR-scanner the ability to live independently. This denition is commonly used
and does not require the application of contrast agents. SWI is an in stroke trials [19]. In large stroke trials, patients with a higher
MRI sequence that leads to an increased contrast and conspicuity premorbid mRS are usually excluded. We included 7 patients with
of T2*-lesions through the combination of the phase mask and the a premorbid mRS of 3. For these patients an unchanged mRS at dis-
gradient echo magnitude map [68]. It has been used for the detec- charge was dened as favorable outcome as well. 2 patients with an
tion of cerebral microbleeds or intracranial hemorrhage for many premorbid mRS 4 were excluded, because a signicant increase in
years [8]. Recently, changes in cortical and deep medullary vessels disability can go in hand with an unchanged mRS in these patients.
were described in patients with acute ischemic stroke [916]. Signs
for hypoperfusion have been described in T2*-weighted imaging
before, but due to the calculation of the SWI maps explained above, 2.2. Image acquisition
the ndings are more prominent and therefore easier to exam-
ine on SWI [17]. In the recent studies with SWI, more prominent Images were acquired during routine clinical diagnostics using
hypointense asymmetric and partially enlarged vessels were found a 3 Tesla MR system (Magnetom Tim Trio or Verio with identi-
in areas of hypoperfusion. The hypointense vessels were found to cal technical parameters, Siemens Healthcare, Erlangen, Germany)
be a correlate of increased deoxyhemoglobin in this area [18]. All with a 12-channel head-matrix coil. SWI data were recorded
of these changes were shown to predict outcome and can be used with a 3D, fully ow-compensated gradient echo sequence using
to calculate a tissue at risk [13,14]. One study found that the cal- the following parameters: TE 19.7 ms, TR 27 ms, ip angle 15 ,
culation of the penumbra using SWI was more accurate than the FOV 230 230 mm, slice thickness 3 mm, pixel spacing 0.72 and
calculation using PWI [13] in patients with ischemic stroke of the an acquisition time of 2:16 min. The GRE magnitude and phase
anterior circulation. The aim of the current study was to inves- images were converted into SW images by the MR-scanner
tigate whether SWI abnormalities, i.e. asymmetric cortical vessel software. For dynamic susceptibility contrast perfusion imaging
sign (ACVS), occur in patients with ICA stenosis, whether they are (PWI) 0.1 mmol/kg gadolinium based contrast medium (Dotarem ,
clinically relevant and whether they correspond to PWI changes. Guerbet) was administered and images were obtained with a
GRE echo planar imaging (EPI) sequence: TE 35 ms, TR 1920 ms,
FOV 240 240 mm, slice thickness 5 mm, 75 dynamic scans
2. Methods
(0.1 mmol/kg Dotarem 3.5 ml/s using a power injector, injection
after the third frame), resulting in an acquisition time of 2:31 min.
The study was approved by the local ethics committee (state-
TTP and Tmax maps were calculated using the software supplied by
ment S-330/2012). Due to the retrospective nature of this study,
the manufacturer (Syngo Software, Leonardo, Siemens Medical Sys-
the ethics committee did not require subsequent informed written
tems, Erlangen, Germany). DWI was performed using a single-shot
consent of the included patients.
spin-echo echo-planar sequence with the following parameters:
TE = 90 ms, TR = 5300 ms, ip angle = 90 , slice thickness = 5 mm.
2.1. Patient selection Diffusion sensitizing gradients were applied sequentially in the x,
y, and z directions with b-values of 0 and 1200 s/mm2 . Apparent
Consecutive patients were retrospectively selected from the diffusion coefcient trace maps were created automatically using
hospital database. Only patients with at least 20% ICA stenosis the above mentioned software, supplied by the manufacturer.
(according to NASCET, see below) without intracranial stenosis
or occlusion (in Doppler sonography or angiography, Fig. S1) that
received MRI including SWI were selected. 20% was used as cut 2.3. Image analysis
off value because it is the lowest degree of stenosis with hemo-
dynamic changes in the ICA in Doppler sonography. Patients with Pathological hypointense cortical vessels were scored posi-
bilateral carotid artery stenosis could be included if at least one tive if they were clearly asymmetric, enlarged or more numerous
side had less than 50% stenosis (NASCET). This exclusion crite- on SWI by visual inspection and dened as asymmetric corti-
rion was implemented as the ACVS is based on asymmetry and a cal vessel sign (ACVS). SWI was scored prior to DWI to avoid a
bilateral hemodynamically relevant ICA stenosis could lead to dif- reading bias by two authors (SM, AR). Any case of disagreement
culties in scoring ACVS. Carotid artery occlusions were excluded. was solved by consensus reading. We avoided performing volu-
Age, side of stenosis, degree of stenosis, type of stenosis (symp- metric measurement on SWI as these can be highly subjective if
tomatic/asymptomatic), additional therapy (thrombolysis, carotid it is not performed with quantitative automated measurement.
endarterectomy, carotid artery stenting), risk factors (atrial bril- Dichotomized visual scoring of ACVS was used as it is can be done
lation, peripheral artery disease, smoking, hyperlipoproteinemia, rapidly and does not require sophisticated postprocessing methods.
hypertension, diabetes), National Institute of Health Stroke Scale The presence of a rosary-like pattern of DWI lesions in the cen-
(NIHSS) score and modied Rankin scale (mRS) score on admission trum semiovale was used to classify a hemodynamic distribution of
and on discharge and medication were recorded from the dis- these lesions. Volumetric measurements were done using an open-
charge letters and the hospital archive. Symptomatic carotid artery source segmentation-software (ITK-SNAP, www.itksnap.org [20]).
stenosis was dened by clinical symptoms that could have been TTP maps with thresholds and Tmax maps with thresholds were
caused by the stenosis. Ipsilateral lesions on diffusion weighted calculated automatically using the Olea-Sphere software (Olea
imaging (DWI) alone without clinical symptoms were not counted Medical , La Ciotat, France). Automatic detection for the arterial
as symptomatic. Degree of stenosis was examined using Doppler input function and block-circulant matrix without minimization of
sonography (see below). oscillation single value decomposition deconvolution were used.
Supplementary material related to this article can be found The maps were then grouped by values and the respective volumes
in the online version, at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ejrad.2015.12. were computed using in-house software created with MATLAB
020. (MathWorks , Natick, MA, USA) by one of the authors (SD). For
Clinical outcome was assessed at discharge by an experienced TTP the groups were: 2 s, 4 s and 6 s. For Tmax the groups were:
stroke neurologist not blinded to the clinical course of the patient 4 s, 6 s, 8 s and 10 s. All images were manually checked and
but to this analysis by clinical examination using the NIHSS and the corrected for artifacts using ITK-SNAP. PWI images were aligned
536 S. Mundiyanapurath et al. / European Journal of Radiology 85 (2016) 534539

with T2-images to facilitate artifact detection using an FSL-based Table 1


Baseline characteristics.
algorithm. Image reading was done blinded to outcome parameters.
n = 104

Age (years); median (IQR) 72 (63; 77)


2.4. Doppler sonography
Degree of stenosis (%); median (IQR) 70% (50; 80)
Left sided stenosis 63%
The degree of the stenosis was determined by routine
Cardiovascular risk factors
continuous-wave Doppler sonography using a 4 MHz extracranial
Atrial brillation 12%
Doppler probe (SONARA system, medilab , Estenfeld, Germany) Peripheral artery disease 14%
and a linear 510 Mhz duplex probe with color Doppler-assisted Coronary heart disease 21%
imaging according to the NASCET criteria based on criteria dened Current smoker 30%
Hypercholesterinemia 52%
by the German Society of Sonography in Medicine (DEGUM) [21].
Hypertension 82%
Transcranial Doppler sonography was performed in routine clinical Diabetes mellitus 29%
workup with a 2 MHz pulse-wave probe using the SONARA sys-
Medication
tem. The frequencies used in the study were collected by probing
ACE-inhibitor 36%
the MCA at 50 mm depth. The extent of ow distraction reduced Angiotensin-receptor blocker 20%
acceleration time in the MCA was assessed based on acoustic Beta blocker 42%
impression compared to the normal contralateral side. Ultrasound Calcium-channel blocker 24%
Diuretics 37%
was performed by a vascular neurologist (more than 20 years of
Statin 42%
experience) or one of two technicians (more than 20 years of expe- Aspirin 49%
rience and 7 years of experience). Clopidogrel 13%
Oral anticoagulation 5%
Insulin 4%
2.5. Statistical analysis Oral antidiabetic drugs 18%

Female gender 34%


Statistical analysis was carried out with Microsoft Excel Ver- Length of stay in hospital 5 (4; 7)
sion 2010 and IBM SPSS Version 21. Pretesting for normal ACE: angiotensin converting enzyme.
distribution was not performed to avoid error accumulation [22].
Inter-rater reliability was tested using Cohens Kappa coefcient. In the subgroup of patients with PWI, volume of prolonged
Univariate analysis comparing the patients with ACVS and without TTP 2 s/4 s/6 s and Tmax 4 s/6 s/8 s/10 s were substan-
ACVS on the one hand and with favorable and unfavorable out- tially different between patients with or without ACVS (Table 3).
come on the other hand was performed using MannWhitney-U Analyzing outcome, univariate analysis showed that besides
and chi-square test depending on the level of measurement. Multi- the incidence of ACVS (p = 0.033) and diabetes (p = 0.014) were
variate analysis with favorable outcome as dependent variable was signicantly different between patients with favorable (mRS 02
done applying binary logistic regression models. Variable selection or identical to admission) and unfavorable outcome (Table S1).
was performed using the backward elimination method based on NIHSSS on admission (OR 0.699; [0.578; 0.844]; p < 0.001) and ACVS
likelihood-ratio tests where variables were removed if the related (OR 0.184; CI [0.0390; 0.875]; p = 0.033) were the only indepen-
p-value fell above 0.10. An -Level of 0.05 was chosen. Two-sided dent predictors of outcome in the multivariate logistic regression
p-values are reported throughout. that included all signicantly different parameters of the univariate
analysis (ACVS, diabetes, NIHSSS on admission, premorbid mRS).

3. Results
Table 2
Characteristics of patients with and without ACVS. Values are shown as median (IQR)
104 patients that were treated between 2009 and 2014 were or percentage.
retrieved from the hospital database. The baseline characteris-
tics are summarized in the rst table (Table 1). Out of the 104 ACVS No ACVS p-value
(n = 14) (n = 90)
selected patients, 39 (38%) also had a PWI sequence available
for evaluation. Intracranial stenosis was excluded in 70% using Age (years) 74 (68; 82) 71 (63; 75) 0.083
Degree of stenosis (%) 80 (70; 90) 70 (40; 80) 0.004
Doppler sonography, in 20% using contrast-enhanced MR angiog-
Symptomatic stenosis 93% 61% 0.020
raphy, in 5% using time-of-ight MR angiography and in another 5%
using CT-angiography. 25 patients (24%) had bilateral ICA stenosis. TCD
SF (kHz) 1.9 (1.7; 2.4) 2.2 (1.6; 2.6) 0.642
Inter-rater reliability analysis for scoring ACVS showed substantial
DF (kHz) 0.7(0.6; 1.0) 0.8 (0.6; 0.9) 0.612
agreement (Cohens kappa coefcient 0.75; p < 0.001). ACVS was Contralateral SF (kHz) 1.9 (1.8; 3.1) 2.0 (1.6; 2.9) 0.680
found in 13% of the patients (Fig. 1). Although it was less prominent Contralateral DF (kHz) 0.7 (0.6; 1.1) 0.8 (0.6; 1.0) 0.962
than in middle cerebral artery occlusion, ACVS could be effortlessly RI 0.64 (0.56; 0.67) 0.63 (0.56; 0.68) 0.786
Contralateral RI 0.65 (0.61; 0.72) 0.63 (0.59; 0.68) 0.456
scored in all patients (see Fig. S2 for further examples). Patients
Reduced acceleration at MCA 64%% 36% 0.145
with ACVS had a higher degree of stenosis according to NASCET
(80% vs. 70%, p = 0.004), larger volumes with restricted diffusion DWI lesion volume (ml) 7.3 (0.2; 16.3) 0.2 (0; 4.8) 0.011
DWI hemodynamic distribution 71% 26% 0.093
(7.3 ml vs. 0.2 ml, p = 0.011), and less frequently had a favorable
Favorable outcome 57% 82% 0.033
outcome (57% vs. 82%, p = 0.033) (Table 2). Although there was a
higher rate of hemodynamic distributions (rosary-like pattern) of Treatment
IV alteplase 7% 8% 0.925
the DWI lesions (71% vs. 26%), this did not reach statistical signi- CAS/CEA 64% 46% 0.205
cance (p = 0.093). Even though sensitivity for the detection of DWI
ACVS: asymmetric cortical vessel sign; TCD: transcranial doppler sonography;
lesions was very low (21%), the specicity of ACVS reached 86%.
SF/DF: systolic/diastolic frequency, RI: resistance index; MCA: middle cerebral
Supplementary material related to this article can be found artery; DWI: diffusion weighted imaging; NIHSSS: National Institute of Health
in the online version, at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ejrad.2015.12. Stroke Scale Score; mRS: modied Rankin Scale score; CAS: carotid artery stenting;
020. CEA: carotid endarterectomy.
S. Mundiyanapurath et al. / European Journal of Radiology 85 (2016) 534539 537

Fig. 1. Asymmetric cortical vessel sign in patients with internal carotid artery stenosis.
First row shows images of a patient with 70% stenosis and unfavorable outcome. In SWI, asymmetric hypointense cortical vessels on the left side are prominent (A). PWI
shows a large hypoperfused region in this area (B). Additional intracranial MCA stenosis was ruled out in this patient by CTA (Fig. S1). Second row shows images of another
patient with 70% stenosis but favorable outcome. No asymmetric hypointense vessels were observed on SWI (C) and PWI was normal (D). Bar shows color-coded Tmax values
(in seconds) for PWI.

Supplementary material related to this article can be found increase in deoxyhemoglobin, that can be detected using SWI. We
in the online version, at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ejrad.2015.12. demonstrated that this hypoperfusion can be identied by simply
020. stating whether asymmetric cortical vessels were present or not.
This nding is conrmed by the subgroup of patients that showed
4. Discussion higher volumes of pathological Tmax and TTP values in patients with
ACVS. While hypoperfusion in stroke has been found to correlate
In our study, we present evidence that SWI is a new method to with SWI abnormalities in previous studies [16,17] the results of
judge hypoperfusion in patients with ICA stenosis. The hypoper- our study are new in that they show the clinical relevance of the
fusion found in carotid artery stenosis seems to cause a relevant ACVS in a homogenous population of patients with ICA stenosis.
Table 3
Risk factors and medication are comparable to previously described
Perfusion weighted imaging volumes for patients with or without ACVS. populations of patients with ICA stenosis [23].
DWI lesion volume is a well-known risk factor for unfavorable
ACVS (n = 8) No ACVS (n = 31) p-value
outcome in ischemic stroke and it is therefore of interest whether
Tmax imaging signs of hypoperfusion show a correlation to DWI lesions
4 s 42.2 (5.7; 110.6) 0 (0; 7.3) 0.007
[24]. While Tmax and TTP are sensitive for the detection of DWI
6 s 16.7 (2.3; 42.1) 0 (0; 0.8) 0.005
8 s 10.2 (1.7; 15.3) 0 (0; 0.4) 0.005 lesions, our study showed that SWI and ACVS had a rather low
10 s 6.6 (1.5; 9.4) 0 (0; 0.2) 0.007 sensitivity but a reasonable specicity for DWI lesions (86%). This
goes in hand with previously published studies. Lou et al. ana-
TTP
2 s 48.0 (29.5; 138.7) 12.6 (0; 30.0) 0.006 lyzed 54 patients and found that the SWIDWI mismatch is more
4 s 14.7 (2.8; 69.3) 0.7 (0; 2.9) 0.005 accurate than several denitions of PWIDWI mismatch [13]. They
6 s 10.8 (1.3; 26.3) 0.2 (0; 0.8) 0.003 also stated that while the sensitivity was lower compared to the
ACVS: asymmetric cortical vessel sign; Tmax : time to peak of the residue curve; TTP: PWIDWI mismatch, the specicity was markedly higher which is
time to peak of the tissue concentration curve. similar to our nding. Taken these ndings together, SWI changes
538 S. Mundiyanapurath et al. / European Journal of Radiology 85 (2016) 534539

only seem to occur in critical hypoperfusion and are clinically rel- ceptibility weighted imaging and the asymmetric cortical vessel
evant when they occur. The impact on short term outcome in sign, critical and clinically relevant hypoperfusion can be depicted
patients with ICA stenosis was evident in our study. ACVS was an without the need for contrast agents or postprocessing methods.
independent predictor of outcome in multivariate analysis. Other The identication of relevant hypoperfusion might become impor-
studies have shown the effect of ACVS on outcome in patients tant in the selection of patients for revascularization procedures in
with middle cerebral artery infarction [14,25]. We suspect that the future.
the reason for this increased rate of unfavorable outcome might Susceptibility weighted imaging reveals clinically relevant
be caused by early infarct growth which was reported to occur hypoperfusion in carotid artery stenosis.
in areas with severe hypoperfusion [26]. This would have to be
proven in a prospective study using sequential MR imaging. Sun Disclosures
et al. included patients with ICA stenosis as well. However, a com-
parison to our results is difcult as the degree of stenosis and the None.
number of patients with intracranial stenosis is not described in
detail. High-grade intracranial stenosis/occlusion can cause man- Funding
ifest alteration of ACVS [25,27] and patients who exhibited these
were therefore excluded in our trial. None.
In comparison to another study that used more specic and
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