SHAPE Society

1. Non-invasive Detection of
Vulnerable Plaque Using
SPIO Enhanced MRI

2. Everybody has
atherosclerosis, the
question is who has
Vulnerable
Plaque

3. The Online Cardiovascular Research Community
www.VulnerablePlaque.org
All slides will be available on:

5. Vulnerable Plaque?
Atherosclerotic plaques that
cause sudden luminal clot
formation and lead to heart
attack and stroke.

6. Different Types of Vulnerable Plaque
As underlying Cause of Acute Coronary Events
Normal
Rupture-prone
Fissured Eroded
Critical Stenosis Hemorrhage

7. Carotid artery plaqueCCA
Carotid bifurcation
ICA stenosis & plaque
Courtesy of
Dr. Chun Yuan
University of
Washington,
Seattle

8. Plaque Morphology
Vs.
Plaque Activity
 Why do we need to go beyond
morphological assessment of
plaques? Why do we need both?
 The short answer is: because not all
plaques with similar morphology would
result in similar outcome.

9. SPIO
 Super
 Paramagnetic
 Iron
 Oxide
Colloidal coated particles of iron oxide, e.g.
dextran coated SPIO (Feridex I.V.)

10. Weissleder R et al. (1997)

12. Schmitz et al J. Inv. Radiol. 2000

13.  Non-invasive MRI study of
atherosclerotic plaques using SPIO
(pre and post injection comparison)
may be a likely method for detection of
vulnerable plaques
 Further studies particularly human
clinical trials are warranted

14. SPIO Clinical Trial:
- The first human clinical trial on
detection of carotid vulnerable
plaque using SPIO in patients
undergoing carotid
endartherectomy
Baseline
Scan
SPIO
Injection
1hr post-
injection
5days
Scan
Surgery

20. WWW.HotPlaque.Com