日本小児循環器学会雑誌 Pediatric Cardiology and Cardiac Surgery

Evaluation of the coronary arterial intima is important in the follow-up of coronary arterial lesions complicated by Kawasaki disease (KD). We evaluated the lesions in four cases of KD using optical coherence tomography (OCT), which can show vessel wall thickness on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the coronary vessel wall using the black blood method (BB). All cases showed intimal thickening on OCT at areas of thickened vessel wall using BB. Although vessel wall thickening was detected as iso-intensity with BB, OCT showed various histological features of the intima at these lesions. We revealed that intimal thickening is evaluable using BB compared with OCT findings. MRI of coronary vessel walls with BB may be useful in screening for intimal thickening of coronary arterial lesions complicated with KD.