Endovascular treatment of anterior cerebral artery occlusions

There are limited data on endovascular treatment (EVT) for anterior cerebral artery (ACA) occlusions. This review focuses on aspects related to ACA EVT: ACA anatomy, clinical and imaging findings, prognosis of ACA stroke, and ACA thrombectomy techniques. The ACA anatomy, and the regions supplied by the ACA, are highly variable; frequent anatomical variants include azygos ACA, triplicated ACA and fenestrations of the anterior communicating artery. ACA occlusions can be classified based on occlusion location, their continuity with other vessel occlusions (isolated ACA occlusion vs ACA occlusion as part of a carotid T occlusion) and etiology (primary—spontaneous ACA occlusion, vs secondary—spontaneous or iatrogenic due to clot fragmentation/migration). Symptoms of ACA stroke differ in severity and nature due to large inter-individual variations in territorial ACA blood supply. Generally, ACA strokes are severely disabling, and the typical clinical hallmark is a motor deficit of the contralateral lower extremity. Advanced imaging (CT perfusion, multiphase CT angiography) increases the likelihood of the correct diagnosis of ACA stroke and should be obtained on routine basis.Available data for ACA EVT suggest its feasibility and safety while clinical outcomes are often unfavorable with conservative management. Therefore, the potential benefit of EVT seems obvious. An optimized endovascular approach for ACA thrombectomy comprises the development and use of smaller and softer devices that can be delivered through small microcatheters with an optimized vector of force. Ultimately, generating high-level evidence for ACA EVT from randomized trials remains warranted.

The preoperative localisation of small parathyroid adenomas improves when adding Tc-99m-Sestamibi SPECT to multiphase contrast-enhanced CT

Objectives To investigate the incremental value of Sestamibi SPECT combined with a non-enhanced and contrast-enhanced CT, using SPECT/CT, for the preoperative localisation of small parathyroid adenomas (PTA). Methods Retrospectively, 147 patients surgically cured from primary hyperparathyroidism, as verified by biochemistry 6 months postoperatively, were included. All patients had preoperatively undergone a dual time 99mTechnetium-Sestamibi SPECT (S) with multiphase CT including native (N), arterial (A) and venous (V) phases. Independently, two radiologists blinded from both the surgical and the preoperative imaging reports, sequentially performed PTA localisation starting with either [A] or [V], thereafter [A + N] or [V + N] and finally with the complete [A + N + S] or [V + N + S]. PTA localisation was reported for each image-set. The readers results were combined and the diagnostic performance for each image set was determined. Sensitivity was also calculated for the different quartiles of PTA weight distribution. Results The median adenoma weight was 315 mg. No statistically significant differences in diagnostic performance between arterial and venous based image sets were found. The net effect of adding [N] was to increase specificity. Sestamibi SPECT significantly increased the overall diagnostic accuracy for arterial- and venous-based image sets, p = 0.0008 and p = 0.001, respectively. [A + N + S] was found to have the highest diagnostic performance with 86.5% sensitivity and 94.9% overall accuracy. [A + N + S] was particularly advantageous for locating PTA in the lower weight quartiles. Conclusions Native CT-phase and dual time point Sestamibi SPECT increase specificity and sensitivity, respectively. These, in combination with a single contrast-enhanced CT-phase is the most optimal examination protocol for preoperative localisation of PTA using SPECT/CT.

Abstract P334: Multiphase Computed Tomography Angiography-Perfusion for Quantitative Measurement of Ischemic Volumes

Introduction: Proficiency required to execute CT perfusion (CTP) protocols is a limiting factor in its use in acute stroke. We propose to calculate perfusion parametric maps and measure ischemic volumes using readily available non-contrast CT (NCCT) and multiphase CT angiography (mCTA) images. Materials and Methods: Twenty-five patients presenting with acute ischemic stroke were included in this study. Our proposed dynamic sequence (multiphase CT angiography-perfusion, mCTA-P) consisted of the NCCT as the pre-contrast baseline and three phases of mCTA, which corresponded to the peak arterial, peak venous, and late venous phases at 8 s intervals. CTP was acquired after mCTA and consisted of 22 dynamic images acquired over 60 s at 2.8 s intervals. A prototype model-based deconvolution algorithm (CT Perfusion 4D, GE Healthcare) was used to calculate cerebral blood flow (CBF) and Tmax maps for each series. Infarct was classified as voxels that satisfied both a time-dependent relative CBF threshold and Tmax > 8 s while penumbral voxels satisfied either threshold but not both. Results: Median (interquartile range) 24-hour follow-up infarct volume was 18.6 (4.7 to 34.3) ml and median stroke onset-to-CTP time was 124.0 (70.5 to 201.5) min. Bland-Altman analysis revealed good agreement between CTP and mCTA-P volume measurements as mean differences (limits of agreement) were -1.0 (-14.9 to 12.9) ml for infarct and 8.4 (-42.4 to 59.1) ml for penumbra. Intraclass correlation (95% confidence interval, p < 0.05) between CTP and mCTA-P volumes were 0.72 (0.46 to 0.87) for infarct and 0.68 (0.41 to 0.85) for penumbra, indicating good to moderate reliability. Conclusion: Quantitative perfusion can be estimated from NCCT and mCTA without introducing additional scan time, radiation dose, and contrast injections associated with CTP. Our technique allows assessments of early ischemic changes and collaterals to be augmented with quantitative perfusion measurements of ischemic volumes.