Primitive experience of three dimensional multi-slice spiral CT angiography for the follow-up of intracranial aneurysm clipping / 中华放射学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To evaluate multi-slice three-dimensional CT angiography (MS 3D-CTA) for the follow-up of intracranial aneurysm clipping.Methods MS 3D-CTA of 16 patients with intracranial aneurysm clipping were retrospectively analyzed.The patients were scanned on a 16-slice spiral CT(GE Lightspeed pro).Volume rendering(VR),thin maximum intensity projection(thin MIP) and multi-planar reconstruction (MPR) were employed in image postprocessing in all cases.Results There were 17 clips in the 16 patients with aneurysm clipping.Six clips were located at the posterior communicating artery,5 at the anterior communicating artery,4 at the middle cerebral artery,and the remaining 2 clips were located at the pericallosal artery in 1 patient.There were no abnormalities found in the aneurysm clipping region in 7 cases by MS 3D-CTA.There were residual aneurysm in 2 cases,parent artery stenosis in 4 cases,and artery spasm in 3 cases.There was no parent artery occlusion and clip displacement in all cases.VR showed excellent 3D spacial relations between the clip and parent artery in 12 cases,and showed good relations in 3 cases.The 1 case with 2 clips in the pericallosal artery showed heavy beam-hardening artifacts.The size and shape of aneurysm clips were clearly depicted by MPR and thin MIP,while 3D spacial relation of aneurysm clip and parent artery were poorly showed.Conclusion MS 3D-CTA is a safe and efficient method for the follow-up of intracranialaneurysm clipping.Combined VR with MPR or thin MIP can well reveal postoperative changes after aneurysm clipping.