Initial clinical application results of dual energy CT angiography on head and cervical vessel diseases

Abstract

Objective To explore the clinical application value of dual-energy CT angiography (DECTA) for head and cervical vessel diseases. Methods The imaging data and diagnosis results of 146 patients suspected as having head and cervical vascular diseases and underwent DECTA in our hospital from February 2009 to August 2009 were analyzed, retrospectively and compared. Sixteen of them with positive results were also performed whole cerebral vessels DSA. Results Seventy-seven patients (52.74%) were found to have head and cervical vessel diseases under DECTA; 17 patients were diagnosed as having intracranial aneurysm, 13 with carotid artherosclerosis and stenosis, 13 with intracranial and vertebral artery stenosis, 9 with intracranial arteriovenous malformation (AVM), 7 with internal carotid artery (ICA) or vertebral artery occlusion, 4 with neck-face AVM, 3 with Moyamoya disease, 3 with intracranial tumors, 2 with cerebral infarction, 2 with intracranial phlebothrombosis, 1 without imaging in bilateral ICA, 1 with Sturg-Webber syndrome and 1 with primitive trigeminal artery.DSA results were concordant with the DECTA results by finding 15 of 16 patients (93.75%) with head and cervical vessel diseases; 8 patients were detected as having intracranial aneurysm, 4 with ICA or vertebral artery occlusion, 1 with carotid artherosclerosis and stegnosis, 1 with intracranial AVM and 1 with neck-face AVM. The one that DSA did not find any tumors was noted as having 2 microaneurysms by CTA. Conclusion The head and cervical vascular diseases and the feeding artery of tumor can be demonstrated distinctly with DECTA with high diagnosis accuracy and sensitivity. Key words: Cerebral angiography; Dual-energy CT mapping; Head and cervical disease