Normal intracranial periarterial enhancement on pediatric brain MR imaging.

INTRODUCTION: Large/medium vessel vasculitis is an important etiology of childhood stroke. Early research suggests vessel wall enhancement on postcontrast MRI may be a marker of intracranial vasculitis yet no systematic descriptions of normal periarterial enhancement exist in the literature. The aim was to describe normal periarterial enhancement in the pediatric population.
METHODS: We included all children who had an MR scan between January 2007 and December 2010, with normal parenchymal imaging, no clinical concern of vasculopathy, and axial and coronal postcontrast fat-saturated T1-weighted images with 3-mm slice thickness. Intensity of periarterial enhancement was graded on a three-point scale by two investigators for all intracranial large and medium arteries.
RESULTS: A total of 44 patients aged 4 months to 16 years were included. Inter- and intra-rater reliability in enhancement grading was high (all kappa >0.65). Thin, linear, noncircumferential periarterial enhancement was common and usually symmetrical. It was most commonly prominent in the cavernous and petrous segments of the internal carotid artery and the M1 segment of the middle cerebral artery. Periarterial enhancement was rarely observed at segments surrounded by CSF, including supraclinoid segments of the internal carotid arteries, P1 segments of the posterior cerebral arteries, V4 segments of the vertebral artery, and the basilar arteries.
CONCLUSION: Normal periarterial enhancement is common and usually symmetrical along major intracranial arteries but rarely seen around arterial segments bordered by CSF. Knowledge of these findings may be useful for a sensitive and specific interpretation of MR scans of patients with clinical concerns of vasculitis.