Vessel wall MRI enhancement in noninflammatory cerebral amyloid angiopathy

Cerebral amyloid angiopathy is characterized by deposition of amyloid-β fibrils in the walls of small-to-medium-sized blood vessels. In this retrospective review of 5 patients with histologically confirmed noninflammatory cerebral amyloid angiopathy, high-resolution vessel wall MRI showed arterial wall enhancement in 2 patients (40%). Despite common consensus of equating vessel wall enhancement with inflammation, this report demonstrates that β -amyloid accumulation alone without inflammation can be associated with arterial wall enhancement in a subset of patients.