The purpose of our study was to evaluate the usefulness of ultrasound contrast agents on extracranial vertebral arteries.INTRODUCTIONThe origin of normal VA ...
ECR 2005 / C-1065 The role of echo enhanced ultrasonography in the investigation of extracranial vertebr al arteries Congress: Poster No.: Type: Topic: Authors:
ECR 2005 C-1065 Scientific Chest - Vascular A. Kotis1, G. Chatzakis1, A. Marinos1, S. Karatapanis1, P. S. Brestas2; 1 Rhodes/GR, 2 Athens/GR
DOI: DOI-Link:
http://dx.doi.org/1 0.1594/C-1065
Purpose The purpose of our study was to evaluate the usefulness of ultrasound contrast agents on extracranial vertebral arteries.INTRODUCTIONThe origin of normal VA may be difficult to demonstrate clearly in Color Doppler Examination without echo contrast, because of tortuosity of the proximal portion of the vessel.Furthermore,the origin may lie quite low,beneath the clavicle. The most common abnormal vertebral ultrasound findings may be classified as follows: non visualization,very small... Read more
Methods and Materials Among patients realizing Extracranial Duplex Sonography (ExVA) with initial insufficient initial assessment of Extracranial Vertebral Arteries (ExVA) a number of 15 were selected to realize a second color doppler US (CDUS) examination with administration of an echo-contrast agent (l-vist 4g, bolus 16ml in a concentration 200mg/ml ).The mean age of our examinees was 58 years. All examinations were performed through Aspen Acuson scanner and head transducer 5-7 MHz. Images were analyzed by two... Read more
Results
Clarification of formerly inassessable hypoplasia cases was obtained in 49% vs 45% respectively. Similarly the clarification rates in extracranial occlusion were 56% vs 45% respectively. Most cases showed significant enhancement of image quality and consecutively of vessel visualization after echocontrast injection. This way, measurement of vertebral arteries' diameters was obtained easier and resulted in higher degree of accuracy. Mean values of diameters of vertebral arteries were... Read more
Conclusion Our study demonstrates that echocontrast provides effective Doppler signal enhancement and considerably increases the diagnostic gain in the extracranial vertebral vasculature. Besides improving the image quality, an important finding of this study is the increased confidence in diagnosing vessel occlusion or stenosis.The rate of inconclusive vertebral color-coded duplex examinations could be decreased significantly by echo enhancement. Read more
References T M Buckenham, I A Wright. Ultrasound of the extracranial vertebral artery Br. J. Radiol., January 1, 2004; 77(913): 15 - 20. PS Sidhu Ultrasound of the carotid and vertebral arteries British Medical Bulletin, Vol 56, Issue 2 346-366 W.Zwiebel Introduction to vascular Ultrasonography 4th Ed. pp 167-176 Khaw AV, Schminke U, Bleiss A, Kessler C. Echo-enhanced duplex sonography of extracranial vertebral arteries.Ultrasound Med Biol. 2004 Feb;30(2):139-46. Delcker A, Timmann D, Diener... Read more
Personal Information Kotis Alexandros Radiologist M.D. Karatapanis Stylianos M.D.Radiology Department Internal Medicine DepartmentGeneral Hospital of Rhodes 85100 Rhodes/GR Read more
