Magnetic resonance imaging revealed the relationship between brain atrophy and white matter lesions / 中国中西医结合急救杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To analyze the correlation between cerebral atrophy and white matter lesions (WML) in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) by quantitative and qualitative methods. Methods Two hundred and seventy-two patients with WML admitted to the Department of Neurology of Taizhou Central Hospital from January 2015 to December 2017 were enrolled, by adopting MCMxxxVI 9.0 TM image processing tool and Analyze 9.0TM image editing tool, the volume within the skull, whole brain tissue, cerebrospinal fluid, subarachnoid volume on the surface of the brain, gray matter, normal brain white matter and diseased white matter were quantitatively determined in the MRI, Fazekas visual score was used to qualitatively evaluate the WML of MRI, and the correlation between brain atrophy and WML was analyzed. Results General linear model analysis showed that the WML volume had a negative correlation with total brain atrophy or decreased whole brain volume (β = -0.432, P = 0.004), especially with deep brain atrophy, namely WML volume had a significant positive correlation with the increase of ventricular volume (β = 0.098, P = 0.031), and it had no correlation with superficial brain atrophy or the increase of subarachnoid volume on the surface of the brain (β = 0.088, P = 0.547). Fazekas rating scale used for the correlation analysis of WML and brain atrophy also showed similar results. After adjusting for the gender and skull content volume, it was shown that the WML volume was well fitted with brain volume model, and so was the WML with the following volumes cerebral white matter volume without any pathological changes, the whole brain tissue volume, gray matter volume models (brain volume R2 = 0.25, cerebral white matter volume with no pathological changes R2 = 0.35, whole brain tissue volume R2 = 0.77, gray matter volume R2 = 0.25, all P < 0.05). Conclusion MRI analysis showed WML was associated with brain atrophy, primarily with deep brain atrophy.