Performance of computed tomography angiography to determine anterograde and collateral blood flow status in patients with symptomatic middle cerebral artery stenosis

Background: The purpose of this study was to determine the performance of computed tomography angiography (CTA) by using a scoring system to predict anterograde and collateral blood flow status in patients with symptomatic middle cerebral artery (MCA) stenosis with use of conventional angiography as standard reference. Methods: We retrospectively identified all consecutive patients with unilateral symptomatic MCA stenosis in our center who underwent conventional angiography and CTA within 1 month. The anterograde and collateral blood flow (AnCo) scoring system consisted of anterograde score (AnS) and collateral score (CoS). Evaluation of the CTA images was done independently by two readers, based on the AnCo scoring system. The conventional angiography was assessed by using the Thrombolysis in Cerebral Infarction (TICI) and American Society of Interventional and Therapeutic Neuroradiology (ASITN/SIR) scoring system to determine the status of anterograde and collateral blood flow. Diagnostic performance of AnCo was evaluated by using the area under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve. Results: A total of 61 patients were included in the analysis with mean age of 53.4 +/- 11.0 years. AnS demonstrated a strong correlation with TICI with statistical significance (r = 0.786; p < 0.001). CoS had a modest yet statistically significant correlation with ASITN/SIR (r = 0.574; p < 0.001). The ROC curve analysis for AnS demonstrated an area under the curve (AUC) of 0.894 (p < 0.001) and the ROC curve analysis for CoS showed an AUC of 0.824 (p < 0.001). Conclusions: CTA was a potential method to evaluate anterograde and collateral blood flow status in patients with symptomatic unilateral MCA stenosis.