[Plaque imaging of cervical carotid arteries].

Magnetic resonance plaque imaging is widely used to characterize atherosclerotic plaques of the cervical carotid artery to prevent future stroke events and surgical complications. Intraplaque contrast considerably varies among the T1-weighted MRI techniques, which should be optimized. Non-gated 2-dimensional spin-echo or 3-dimensional fast spin-echo techniques with appropriate scanning parameters can readily characterize vulnerable intraplaque components including lipid, necrosis, and hemorrhage.