Quantitative Evaluation of C-Arm CT Cerebral Blood Volume in a Canine Model of Ischemic Stroke

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Previous studies have shown the feasibility of assessing qualitative CBV measurements in the angiography suite by using FPD-CBCT systems. We have investigated the correlation of FPD-CBCT CBV lesion volumes to the infarct volume.

MATERIALS AND METHODS: Unilateral strokes were created in 7 adult dogs. MR imaging and FPD-CBCT data were obtained after MCA occlusion. FPD-CBCT CBV and ADC maps were generated for all subjects. The animals were sacrificed immediately following the last imaging study to measure infarct volume on histology. The reliability of FPD-CBCT-based lesion volume measurements was compared with those measured histologically by using regression and Bland-Altman analysis.

RESULTS: The best correlation (R² = 0.72) between lesion volumes assessed with FPD-CBCT and histology was established with a threshold of mean healthy CBV − 2.5 × SD. These results were inferior to the correlation of lesion volumes measured with ADC and histology (R² = 0.99). Bland-Altman analysis showed that the agreement of ADC-derived lesion volumes with histology was superior to the agreement of FPD-CBCT-derived lesion volumes with histology.

CONCLUSIONS: We correlated FPD-CBCT measurements of CBV and MR ADC lesion volumes with histologically assessed infarct volume. As expected, ADC is a very accurate and precise method for determining the extent of infarction. FPD-CBCT CBV lesion volumes are correlated to the size of the infarct. Improvement of FPD-CBCT image quality provides an opportunity to establish quantitative CBV measurement in the angiography suite.