A computer-simulation study on the effects of MRI voxel dimensions on carotid plaque lipid-core and fibrous cap segmentation and stress modeling

Background The benefits of a decreased slice thickness and/or in-plane voxel size in carotid MRI for atherosclerotic plaque component quantification accuracy and biomechanical peak cap stress analysis have not yet been investigated in detail because of practical limitations. Methods In order to provide a methodology that allows such an...

Atherosclerotic plaque fibrous cap assessment under an oblique scan plane orientation in carotid MRI

Carotid magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is used to noninvasively assess atherosclerotic plaque fibrous cap (FC) status, which is closely related to ischemic stroke. Acquiring anisotropic voxels improves in-plane visualization, however, an oblique scan plane orientation could then obscure a FC (i.e., contrast below the noise level) and thus...