Oct 12, 2020

Cerebrovascular Reactivity Assays Collateral Function in Carotid Stenosis

Frontiers in physiology
Olivia Sobczyk, Kevin Sam, Daniel M Mandell, Adrian P Crawley, Lakshmikumar Venkatraghavan, Larissa McKetton, Julien Poublanc, James Duffin, Joseph A Fisher, David J Mikulis
In patients with carotid artery stenosis (CAS), the risk of stroke, its severity, and response to revascularization are strongly related to the availability of collateral blood flow. Unfortunately, there is poor agreement between observers in assessing collateral flow using flow-based imaging. We used changes in blood-oxygen-level-dependent (BOLD) MRI as a surrogate of changes in regional cerebral blood flow in response to a hypercapnic stimulus [i.e., cerebrovascular reactivity (CVR)] as...