Fig 2.

Examples of classic carotid plaques.

A, An example of low signal intensity plaque. Top and bottom rows show 3 corresponding sections with 2.5-mm intervals of TOF MRA and MPRAGE, respectively. A 76-year-old man has left carotid artery stenosis and no history of ipsilateral ischemic events. The carotid plaque (arrows) displays no signal hyperintensity relative to the adjacent muscle.

B, An example of high signal intensity plaque. Top and bottom rows show 3 corresponding sections with 2.5-mm intervals in initial and follow-up MR imaging. A 58-year-old man experienced cerebral infarction in the territory of the right middle cerebral artery 12 days before initial MR imaging, which reveals a right carotid plaque with heterogeneous MPRAGE signal hyperintensity (top row). At 4 months after initial MR imaging, the patient again developed cerebral infarction in the right middle cerebral artery territory. Follow-up MR imaging at 5 months after initial MR imaging (bottom row) shows mild increase of MPRAGE high signal intensity region.