Evaluation of vasospasm after subarachnoid hemorrhage by use of multislice computed tomographic angiography

OBJECTIVE: Multislice computed tomographic angiography (CTA) can provide clearer vascular images, even of the peripheral arteries, than conventional CTA. Multislice CTA was compared with digital subtraction angiography (DSA) for the detection of cerebral vasospasm in patients with acute aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH) to analyze whether multislice CTA can replace DSA in the detection of vasospasm after SAH. METHODS: Within 72 hours after the onset of symptoms, multislice CTA and DSA were performed in 20 patients with SAH. Multislice CTA and DSA were repeated on Day 7 to assess cerebral vasospasm. Regions of interest were established in the proximal and distal segments of the anterior and middle cerebral arteries on both multislice CTA and DSA images, and the agreement between the severity of vasospasm on multislice CTA and DSA images was statistically compared. The multislice Aquilon computed tomography system (Toshiba, Inc., Tokyo, Japan) used the following parameters: 1 mm collimation and 3.5 mm per rotation table increment (pitch, 3.5). RESULTS: The degree of vasospasm as revealed by multislice CTA correlated significantly with the degree of vasospasm revealed by DSA (P < 0.0001). The agreement between the severity of vasospasm on multislice images obtained via CTA and DSA in the overall, proximal, and distal segments of the cerebral arteries was 91.6, 90.8, and 92.3%, respectively. CONCLUSION: Multislice CTA can detect angiographic vasospasm after SAH with accuracy equal to that of DSA.