J Korean Neurol Assoc.  1999 Sep;17(5):615-620.

Usefulness of Diffusion - Weighted Imaging in Acute and Subacute Ischemic Stroke: Comparison with Fast Spin-Echo T2-Weighted Imaging and Fluid Attenuated Inversion Recovery Imaging

• Cho EK
• Jeong JH
• Chae SH
• Kim YJ
• Park KD
• Choi KG
• Kim YK

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Diffusion-weighted MR imaging (DWI) was designed to detect the random molecular otion of water in tissue. DWI has gained increasing interest recently because it can demonstrate yperacute stroke earlier than any other imaging methods so far. The purpose of our study was to etermine the clinical usefulness and significance of DWI compared with those of Fast Spin Echo T2-weighted image (SE T2WI) and Fluid Attenuated Inversion Recovery (FLAIR) image in acute and subacute ischemic stroke. METHOD: Twenty-five adult patients with clinical diagnoses of acute or subacute cerebral infarctions were imaged with fast SE T2WI, FLAIR and DWI using a 1.5-T image.
RESULTS
All the patients had areas of high signal intensity indicating acute or subacute lesions on DWI and these lesions provide an excellent clinicoanatomic correlation.
CONCLUSIONS
DWI is most useful in the diagnosis and localization of acute or subacute lacuna or subcortical infarction in patients with preexisting chronic infarctions or white matter hyperintensity showing high signal intensity similar to acute or subacute infarctions on T2WI or FLAIR image.

Keyword

Magnetic resonance ( MR ); Diffusion study; Brain; Infarction; Multiple subcortical infarction

MeSH Terms

Adult
Brain
Cerebral Infarction
Diagnosis
Diffusion*
Humans
Infarction
Magnetic Resonance Imaging
Stroke*