Application of diffusion weighted imaging in severity assessment and prognosis prediction of diffuse axonal injury / 中华创伤杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To discuss the value of diffusion weighted imaging (DWI) in severity assessment and prognosis prediction of diffuse axonal injury (DAI). Methods A retrospective study was performed on the clinical imaging data and the follow-up results at six months after injury in 29 patients with DAI. The detection rate of DAI lesion by DWI and conventional MRI was compared by means of one-way ANOVA. The correlation between the number of lesion in different areas with GCS and GOS was analyzed with Spearman rank correlation test. Results (1)The average detected DAI lesions were 19.24±5.72 on DWI, 14.41 ±4.50 on FLAIR, 10.58±3.79 on T2WI and 4.83 ±2. 11 on TIWI, with the highest detection number of DAI lesion on DWI (P < 0, 05). (2) There was a significant correlation of the number of central lesions (in corpus callosum, basal ganglia and brain stem) with GCS and COS (P < 0. 05), but there was no correlation of total lesion number or periphery lesion with GCS and COS (P > 0.05). Conclusions DWI is a potentially useful imaging modality in detecting DAI lesion, when the number of central lesion on DWI can be served as an objective marker in severity assessment and prognosis prediction of DAI.