Comparisons of clinical and imaging characteristics in acute thrombotic and embolic middle cerebral artery occlusion A retrospective diffusion-weighted imaging-based study / 国际脑血管病杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To investigate the clinical and imaging differences in acute thrombotic and embolic middle cerebral artery occlusion.Methods The cerebral infarction patients with acute middle cerebral artery trtmk occlusion confirmed by diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) and magnetic resonance angiography (MRA) within 24 hours of onset were divided into large artery atherosclerosis (LAA) group and the cardioembolism (CE) group according to the TOAST classification criteria.Under the circumstances of not receiving thrombolytic therapy,the infarct volume on DWI,morphological characteristics and the changes of the National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS) scores both at admission and day 14 were compared.Results A total of 102 cerebral infarction patients with acute middle cerebral artery trunk occlusion were included.The age of the CE group was significantly older than that of the LAA group (67.60 ± 9.62 years vs.62.57 ± 10.18 years,P =0.017),and more patients with coronary heart disease (27.27％ vs.2.90％,P=0.001 ).The infarct volume (31.96 ±39.20 ml vs.65.66 ±84.74 ml,P =0.005),the NIHSS score at admission (6.42 ± 3.38 vs.11.67 ±8.50,P=0.007),and the improvement of the disease (i.e.the difference of NIHSS scores between admission and day 14) (1.55 ± 6.43 vs.5.75 ± 9.28,P =0.027) in LAA group were significantly lower than those in the CE group.However,there was no significant difference in the NIHSS score between the 2 groups at day 14 (4.87 ± 6.61 vs.5.97 ± 3.60,P =0.324).The infarct volume was significantly correlated with the NIHSS scores at day 14 (CE groupr=0.625,P=0.001; LAA groupr=0.295,P=0.014).The LAA group was mostly the multiple lesions (71.01％),and the CE group was mostly the single lesions (54.55％) (P =0.016).Conclusion There were differences in morphology of cerebral lesion between the LAA and CE groups.In the early stage after onset,CE caused middle cerebral artery trunk occlusion was more serious and had larger infarct volume,but some patients could naturally significantly improve within a short time after onset.