Diagnostic performance of silent magnetic resonance angiography for endovascularly-treated intracranial aneurysm follow-up: a prospective study

Background Multiple studies have reported the clinical usefulness of silent magnetic resonance angiography (MRA) in the follow-up of endovascularly-treated aneurysms. However, most previous studies were retrospective or with small sample sizes. The objective of this study was to prospectively evaluate the diagnostic performance of silent MRA in the follow-up of intracranial aneurysms treated by different interventional approaches. Methods Patients with endovascularly-treated intracranial aneurysms and followed by silent MRA and digital subtraction angiography (DSA) were enrolled. The visualization of treated sites on silent MRA was rated on a 5-point scale. The aneurysm occlusion status was evaluated using the Raymond Scale and a simplified two-grade scale. Results A total of 155 patients with 175 treated aneurysms were enrolled. The average score for the visualization of treated sites was 3.92±0.94, and 93.7% (164/175) had a score ≥3. In the subgroup analysis, except for the simple coiling group which had an obviously higher score (4.95±0.21), there was no significant difference among the stent-assisted coiling group (3.51±0.77), flow diversion group (3.74±0.80), and flow diversion with coiling group (3.40±1.17). Regarding aneurysm occlusion status, silent MRA and DSA were discordant for only one aneurysm using the Raymond Scale, and the inter-modality consistency was almost perfect (κ=0.992, 95% CI 0.977 to 1.000). Conclusions Silent MRA showed an excellent diagnostic performance in the follow-up of endovascularly-treated intracranial aneurysms, and may be an ideal option for repeated examinations.