| Diffusion Tensor Imaging in Patients with Hemorrhagic Stroke |
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Hyun Gon Lee, Moo Seong Kim, Won Hee Lee, Se Young Pyo, Seong Tae Kim, Hae Woong Jeong |
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Department of Neurosurgery, Diagnostic Radiology, Inje University Busan Paik Hospital, Busan, Korea |
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| Abstract |
Objective
Recent advances in magnetic resonance (MR) diffusion tensor imaging have enabled the evaluation of white matter anisotropy, and measurement of the integrity and orientation of fiber tracts. In the current study, we assessed the usefulness of MR
diffusion tensor imaging techniques for visualizing the corticospinal tract following hemorrhagic stroke.
Material and Methods: Scans using diffusion tensor imaging were acquired for 14 patients who had experienced hemorrhage
stroke. We classified the integrity of white matter tracts as good, displaced, compressed, partially cut off, or poor. We compared
our evaluations with each patient’s clinical motor weakness severity and prognosis, as well as their fractional anisotropy (FA) ratio.
Results
The male to female ratio of our participants was 9 : 5, with a mean age of 58.9 years (range : 43-77 years). Tractography
revealed that three patients had good white matter integrity, three had displaced white matter tracts, two had compressed tracts,
two exhibited partially cut off tracts, and four had poor white matter integrity rendering the corticospinal tract invisible. The FA ratio was 90.2%, and a good correlation was found between tractography and patient recovery. The partially cut off tract group and
poor corticospinal visualization group had residual deficits on clinical follow-up, whereas patients with displaced tracts exhibited
good recovery.
Conclusions
MR tractography provides a useful method to directly visualize corticospinal tracts in patients following hemorrhagic stroke. This could allow for the development of correlation analyses between clinical imaging and patients’ prognostic potential. |
| Key Words:
Diffusion tensor imaging, Hemiparesis, Hemorrhagic stroke, MR tractography. |
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