Imaging Modalities to Identity Inflammation in an Atherosclerotic Plaque

Figure 2

Morphologic characteristics of carotid artery atherosclerosis using MRI. 3-T magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of a plaque in the right common carotid artery demonstrates fibrous cap rupture with ulcer formation (yellow arrows). The crescent-shaped high-signal region in the proton density-weighted (PDW), T2-weighted (T2W), and contrast enhanced T1-weighted (CE-T1W) images corresponds to a region of thrombus formation, shown on the matched histology section (hematoxylin and eosin stain). Reprinted with permission from Chu et al. [23].