Clinical features of cerebral microbleeds among patients with acute ischemic cerebrovascular diseases / 中华神经医学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To study the prevalence and grade of cerebral microbleeds (CMB) among patients with different subtypes of acute ischemic cerebrovascular diseases, and investigate the clinical significance of CMB.Methods Consecutive 259 patients with acute ischemic cerebrovascular diseases, admitted to our hospitals from September 2009 to July 2010, were included; according to the stroke subtypes, these patients were classified into groups of atherothrombotic infarction (n=146),cardioembolic infarction (n=28), small artery infarction (n=50), infarction of unknown origin (n=19) and transient ischemia attack (TIA, n=16). The patients without cerebral vascular diseases were served as controls (n=96). The baseline data were registered and all patients were performed gradient echo-T2*weighted imaging (GRE-T2*WI); the prevalence and grade of CMB between each 2 different subtypes of acute ischemic cerebrovascular diseases were compared; the prevalence of CMB in patients with acute ischemic infarction for the first time and patients with recurrent cerebral infarction was compared.Results The prevalence and grade of CMB between each 2 different infarction subtypes varied with a statistical difference (P＜0.05). Apart from that of TIA group, the prevalence of all infarction groups was statistically higher than that of the controls (P＜0.05) with small artery infarction group being the highest (68.0%). The prevalence of CMB in patients with recurrent infarction was statistically higher than that in patients with primary infarction (P＜0.05).Conclusion The prevalence of CMB among different subtypes of infarction is high with the subtype of small artery infarction enjoying the highest rate; the prevalence of CMB in recurrent infarction goes higher as compared with that in primary infarction; the relapse of the cerebral infarction is possiblely related to the presence of CBMs.