Purpose

Evaluation of intracranial artery morphology plays an important role in diagnosing a variety of neurovascular diseases. In addition to clinical symptoms, diagnosis currently relies on qualitative rather than quantitative evaluation of vascular imaging sequences, such as magnetic resonance angiography (MRA). However, there is a paucity of literature on normal arterial morphology in the pediatric population across brain development. We aimed to quantitatively assess normal, age-related changes in artery morphology in children.

Methods

We performed retrospective analysis of pediatric MRA data obtained from a tertiary referral center. An MRA dataset from 98 children (49 boys/49 girls) aged 0.6–20 years (median = 11.5 years) with normal intracranial vasculature was retrospectively collected between 2011 and 2018. All arteries were automatically segmented to determine the vessel radius. Using an atlas-based approach, the average radius and density of arteries were measured in the three main cerebral vascular territories and the radius of five major arteries was determined at corresponding locations.

Results

The radii of the major arteries as well as the average artery radius and density in the different vascular territories in the brain remained constant throughout childhood and adolescence (|r| < 0.369 in all cases).

Conclusion

This study presents the first automated evaluation of intracranial vessel morphology on MRA across childhood. Our results can serve as a framework for quantitative evaluation of cerebral vessel morphology in the setting of pediatric neurovascular diseases.

中文翻译：

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健康儿童的年龄依赖性颅内动脉形态学

目的

颅内动脉形态的评估在诊断多种神经血管疾病中起着重要作用。除了临床症状外，目前的诊断依赖于血管成像序列的定性而非定量评估，例如磁共振血管造影 (MRA)。然而，在整个大脑发育过程中，关于儿科人群正常动脉形态的文献很少。我们旨在定量评估儿童动脉形态的正常、与年龄相关的变化。

方法

我们对从三级转诊中心获得的儿科 MRA 数据进行了回顾性分析。回顾性收集了 2011 年至 2018 年间 98 名年龄在 0.6-20 岁（中位数 = 11.5 岁）、颅内血管正常的儿童（49 名男孩/49 名女孩）的 MRA 数据集。自动分割所有动脉以确定血管半径。使用基于图谱的方法，在三个主要脑血管区域测量动脉的平均半径和密度，并在相应位置确定五个主要动脉的半径。

结果

主要动脉的半径以及大脑中不同血管区域的平均动脉半径和密度在整个儿童期和青春期都保持不变（所有情况下|r| < 0.369）。

结论

本研究首次对儿童期 MRA 颅内血管形态进行自动评估。我们的结果可以作为在小儿神经血管疾病背景下定量评估脑血管形态的框架。