Initial investigation of magnetic resonance perfusion-weighted imaging in leukoaraiosis / 中华老年医学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To investigate whether perfusion-weighted imaging (PWI) can be used to evaluate blood perfusion of patients with leukoaraiosis (LA), its relationship to clinical features, and the therapy effect of LA. Methods The 44 patients with LA were recruited in the study. All the subjects were examined with both conventional and dynamic susceptibility contrast-enhanced perfusion MR imaging, 13 of them repeated the examinations after the treatment. The shapes and sizes of the biggest lesions in each patient were confirmed by conventional MR imaging, then the values of relative cerebral blood volume (rCBV), relative cerebral blood flow (rCBF) and relative mean transit time (rMTT) in each lesion were calculated respectively. Furtherly, a Pearson's correlation analysis was performed to show whether these values were correlated with mini-mental state examination (MMSE)scores or activities of daily living (ADL) scores. Results The 44 lesions of all the subjects showed significant decreases in rCBV (0. 797 ± 0. 160) and rCBF (0. 779± 0. 164) but increase in rMTT (1. 029±0. 073). There were positive correlations between rCBV and MMSE (r = 0. 524, P =0. 000), between rCBV and ADL (r=0. 621, P=0. 000), between rCBF and MMSE (r=0. 555, P=0. 000), and between rCBF and ADL (r= 0. 690, P= 0. 000), and negative correlations between rMTTand MMSE (r=-0.307, P=0.043), and between rMTT and ADL (r=-0.434, P=0. 003). The blood perfusion was enhanced in 10 out of 13 patients who received the repeated examinations after the treatment, most of whom showed the improvement of clinical symptoms.Conclusions Perfusion MR imaging can assess hemodynamic alterations in LA, which could reflect the clinical symptoms. Moreover, the changes of blood perfusions can be used to evaluate and monitor the therapy effect of LA.