Pablo was in the hospital after a stroke. The doctors used a combination of many diagnostic procedures to detect the damage due
to the stroke. Which procedure is described below? Pablo’s doctor advised him to have ____done. After his consent, Pablo was injected with a radiopaque dye. The radiologist then took X-ray images of the blood vessels of the brain.
Cerebral angiography (arteriography) is a technique used to detect abnormalities of cerebral blood vessels - such as arterial dilation (aneurysm), inflammation (arteritis), abnormal configuration (arteriovenous malformation) or vascular obstruction (stroke ).
In this technique, radiopaque contrast (X-ray-visible substance) is injected into an artery that irrigates the brain, thus revealing the pattern of cerebral blood flow on radiographs. Magnetic resonance imaging may also be used, in the case shown above, to show the blood flow pattern of the neck and base arteries of the brain, but the images are of poorer quality than cerebral angiography.
