The ReWiSed CARe Technique : Simultaneous Treatment of Atherosclerotic Tandem Occlusions in Acute Ischemic Stroke.

BACKGROUND: Endovascular treatment of acute cerebral large vessel occlusions and concomitant atherosclerotic lesions of the ipsilateral internal carotid artery (ICA) are a matter of debate. This article reports a multi-center experience using the retriever wire supported carotid artery revascularization (ReWiSed CARe) technique allowing simultaneous treatment of both lesions. METHODS: The study retrospectively analyzed 23 patients with acute tandem occlusions (TO) who underwent ReWiSed CARe at 3 German centers. Clinical, including demographics and National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS) and procedural, including angiographic evaluation of recanalization, data were evaluated. Favorable clinical outcome was defined as modified Rankin Scale (mRS) score ≤2 at 90 days. RESULTS: The median age was 70 years (interquartile range [IQR] 65-80 years) and 70% were male. The median baseline NIHSS was 15 (IQR 11-17). Out of 23 patients, 22 (96%) had an intracranial occlusion of the anterior circulation. Successful stent retriever deployment with subsequent carotid artery treatment was feasible in all cases without displacement of the stent retriever during the procedure. Overall, successful reperfusion (modified Thrombolysis in Cerebral Infarction [mTICI] ≥2b) was achieved in 22/23 (96%) patients with 10/23 (44%) individuals completely reperfused (mTICI 3). The median groin puncture to stent retriever deployment was 29 min (IQR 23-46) and groin puncture to final revascularization was 63 min (IQR 56-78). The median NIHSS at discharge was 5 (IQR 3-12) with favorable clinical outcome at 90 days in 11 out of 20 patients (55%). CONCLUSION: Endovascular treatment using ReWiSed CARe is safe, fast and efficient in TO patients with underlying atherosclerotic lesion of the extracranial ICA.

Virtual reality system for planning minimally invasive neurosurgery. Technical note.

OBJECT: The authors report on their experience with a 3D virtual reality system for planning minimally invasive neurosurgical procedures. METHODS: Between October 2002 and April 2006, the authors used the Dextroscope (Volume Interactions, Ltd.) to plan neurosurgical procedures in 106 patients, including 100 with intracranial and 6 with spinal lesions. The planning was performed 1 to 3 days preoperatively, and in 12 cases, 3D prints of the planning procedure were taken into the operating room. A questionnaire was completed by the neurosurgeon after the planning procedure. RESULTS: After a short period of acclimatization, the system proved easy to operate and is currently used routinely for preoperative planning of difficult cases at the authors' institution. It was felt that working with a virtual reality multimodal model of the patient significantly improved surgical planning. The pathoanatomy in individual patients could easily be understood in great detail, enabling the authors to determine the surgical trajectory precisely and in the most minimally invasive way. CONCLUSIONS: The authors found the preoperative 3D model to be in high concordance with intraoperative conditions; the resulting intraoperative "déjà-vu" feeling enhanced surgical confidence. In all procedures planned with the Dextroscope, the chosen surgical strategy proved to be the correct choice. Three-dimensional virtual reality models of a patient allow quick and easy understanding of complex intracranial lesions.

Differentiation of fibroblastic meningiomas from other benign subtypes using diffusion tensor imaging.

PURPOSE: To differentiate fibroblastic meningiomas, usually considered to be of a hard consistency, from other benign subtypes using diffusion tensor imaging (DTI). MATERIALS AND METHODS: From DTI data sets of 30 patients with benign meningiomas, we calculated diffusion tensors and mean diffusivity (MD) and fractional anisotropy (FA) maps as well as barycentric maps representing the geometrical shape of the tensors. The findings were compared to postoperative histology. The study was approved by the local ethics committee, and informed consent was given by the patients. RESULTS: According to one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA), FA was the best parameter to differentiate between the subtypes (F=32.2; p<0.0001). Regarding tensor shape, endothelial meningiomas were represented by spherical tensors (80%) corresponding to isotropic diffusion, whereas the fibroblastic meningiomas showed a high percentage (43%) of nonspherical tensors, indicating planar or longitudinal diffusion. The difference was highly significant (F=28.4; p<0.0001) and may be due to the fascicular arrangement of long spindle-shaped tumor cells and the high content of intra- and interfascicular fibers as shown in the histology. In addition, a capsule-like rim of the in-plane diffusion surrounded most meningiomas irrespective of their histological type. CONCLUSION: If these results correlate to the intraoperative findings of meningioma consistency, DTI-based measurement of FA and analysis of the shape of the diffusion tensor is a promising method to differentiate between fibroblastic and other subtypes of benign meningiomas in order to get information about their "hard" or "soft" consistency prior to removal.

White matter fiber tracking computation based on diffusion tensor imaging for clinical applications.

Fiber tracking allows the in vivo reconstruction of human brain white matter fiber trajectories based on magnetic resonance diffusion tensor imaging (MR-DTI), but its application in the clinical routine is still in its infancy. In this study, we present a new software for fiber tracking, developed on top of a general-purpose DICOM (digital imaging and communications in medicine) framework, which can be easily integrated into existing picture archiving and communication system (PACS) of radiological institutions. Images combining anatomical information and the localization of different fiber tract trajectories can be encoded and exported in DICOM and Analyze formats, which are valuable resources in the clinical applications of this method. Fiber tracking was implemented based on existing line propagation algorithms, but it includes a heuristic for fiber crossings in the case of disk-shaped diffusion tensors. We successfully performed fiber tracking on MR-DTI data sets from 26 patients with different types of brain lesions affecting the corticospinal tracts. In all cases, the trajectories of the central spinal tract (pyramidal tract) were reconstructed and could be applied at the planning phase of the surgery as well as in intraoperative neuronavigation.