Assessing cortical cerebral microinfarcts on iron-sensitive MRI in cerebral small vessel disease

Wiegertjes, Kim; Chan, Kwok-Shing; Telgte, Annemieke ter; Gesierich, Benno; Norris, David G.; Klijn, Catharina J. M.; Duering, Marco; Tuladhar, Anil M.; Marques, Jose P. und Leeuw, Frank-Erik de (2021): Assessing cortical cerebral microinfarcts on iron-sensitive MRI in cerebral small vessel disease. In: Journal of Cerebral Blood Flow and Metabolism, Bd. 41, Nr. 12, 0271678X211039609: S. 3391-3399

Abstract

Recent studies suggest that a subset of cortical microinfarcts may be identifiable on T2* but invisible on T1 and T2 follow-up images. We aimed to investigate whether cortical microinfarcts are associated with iron accumulation after the acute stage. The RUN DMC - InTENse study is a serial MRI study including individuals with cerebral small vessel disease (SVD). 54 Participants underwent 10 monthly 3 T MRIs, including diffusion-weighted imaging, quantitative R1 (=1/T1), R2 (=1/T2), and R2* (=1/T2*) mapping, from which MRI parameters within areas corresponding to microinfarcts and control region of interests (ROIs) were retrieved within 16 participants. Finally, we compared pre- and post-lesional values with repeated measures ANOVA and post-hoc paired t-tests using the mean difference between lesion and control ROI values. We observed 21 acute cortical microinfarcts in 7 of the 54 participants (median age 69 years [IQR 66-74], 63% male). R2* maps demonstrated an increase in R2* values at the moment of the last available follow-up MRI (median [IQR], 5 [5-14] weeks after infarction) relative to prelesional values (p = .08), indicative of iron accumulation. Our data suggest that cortical microinfarcts are associated with increased R2* values, indicative of iron accumulation, possibly due to microhemorrhages, neuroinflammation or neurodegeneration, awaiting histopathological verification.

• Dokumententyp: Zeitschriftenartikel
• Fakultät: Medizin
• Themengebiete: 600 Technik, Medizin, angewandte Wissenschaften > 610 Medizin und Gesundheit
• ISSN: 0271-678X
• Sprache: Englisch