Multidetector-Row CT Angiography of Cerebral Vasospasm after Aneurysmal Subarachnoid Hemorrhage: Comparison of Bone Subtraction and Standard CT Angiography with Digital Subtraction Angiography

To evaluate the usefulness of multidetector-row CT angiography (MDCTA) for the diagnosis of cerebral vasospasm after aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH) by comparison of digital subtraction angiography (DSA) and to compare the bone subtraction CT angiography (BS-CTA) and standard CT angiography (S-CTA). Thirty-three patients who were treated with intraarterial nimodipine infusion for the cerebral vasospasm after aneurysmal SAH were evaluated with MDCTA and DSA. BS-CTA images were reconstructed from the S-CTA and unenhanced CT source images. A total of 207 vascular segments were evaluated. A four-step scale for the degree of stenosis was applied for each segment. With DSA as the standard images, BS-CTA and S-CTA images were comparied. On DSA, 56 segments (27%) presented vasospasm. Concordance between the DSA and S-CTA and between DSA and BS-CTA were 94.7% and 82.1%, respectively. Overestimation for the degree of stenosis was shown in 37 segments on BS-CTA and in 8 segments on S-CTA, but underestimated segments were only shown on S-CTA (n = 4). MDCTA with standard technique seems to be a useful imaging tool for the evaluation of the cerebral vasospasm after aneurysmal SAH. However, BS-CTA is not needed because of additional radiation and overestimation of the degree of stenosis.