Cerebrovascular diseases
-
Cerebrovascular diseases · Jan 2016
Comparative StudyThe Effect of Age on Characteristics and Mortality of Intracerebral Hemorrhage in the Oldest-Old.
Incidence of acute intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH) increases with age, but there is a lack of information about ICH characteristics in the oldest-old (age ≥85 years). In particular, there is a need for information about hematoma volume, which is included in most clinical scales for prediction of mortality in ICH patients. Many of these scales also assume that, independent of ICH characteristics, the oldest-old have a higher mortality than younger elderly patients (age 65-74 years). However, supporting evidence from cohort studies is limited. We investigated ICH characteristics of oldest-old subjects compared to young (<65 years), young-old (65-74 years) and old-old (75-84 years) subjects. We also investigated whether age is an independent mortality predictor in elderly (age ≥65 years) subjects with acute ICH. ⋯ Oldest-old subjects with acute supratentorial ICH have higher admission hematoma volume than young and young-old subjects but do not differ for other ICH characteristics. When taking into account confounding from ICH characteristics, risk of in-SU and 1-year mortality in elderly subjects with acute supratentorial ICH does not differ across age categories. Our findings question use of age as an independent criterion for stratification of mortality risk in elderly subjects with acute ICH.
-
Cerebrovascular diseases · Jan 2016
Cortical Superficial Siderosis in Memory Clinic Patients: Further Evidence for Underlying Cerebral Amyloid Angiopathy.
Cerebral amyloid angiopathy (CAA) is associated with many cases of spontaneous symptomatic lobar intracerebral haemorrhage in older individuals and is emerging as an important contributor to cognitive impairment. Cortical superficial siderosis (cSS) is an increasingly recognized haemorrhagic neuroimaging manifestation of CAA. We sought to investigate its prevalence and its association with underlying CAA among memory clinic patients. ⋯ Our data provide further evidence supporting the hypothesis that cSS is a manifestation of advanced CAA in memory clinic populations. Future longitudinal studies should explore any direct effect of cSS on cognition or haemorrhage risk and disease progression.
-
Cerebrovascular diseases · Jan 2016
ReviewMalignant MCA Infarction: Pathophysiology and Imaging for Early Diagnosis and Management Decisions.
Malignant middle cerebral artery infarction is a devastating condition, with up to 80% mortality in conservatively treated patients. The pathophysiology of this stroke is characterized by a large core of severe ischemia and only a relatively small rim of penumbra. Due to the fast development of irreversible morphological damage, cytotoxic edema occurs immediately in a large portion of the ischemic territory. The subsequent damage of the tight junctions leads to the breakdown of the blood brain barrier and vasogenic brain edema, resulting in space-occupying brain swelling. The progressive vasogenic edema reaches its maximum after 1 to several days and exerts a mechanical force on surrounding tissue structures leading to midline shift and transtentorial herniation and finally brain stem compression and death. ⋯ Malignant MCA infarction can be predicted early with a high sensitivity by neuroimaging. The early diagnosis is mandatory for DHC, which was shown to reduce mortality and improve functional outcome in several controlled clinical trials.
-
Cerebrovascular diseases · Jan 2016
Comparative StudyComputed Tomography Perfusion Improves Diagnostic Accuracy in Acute Posterior Circulation Stroke.
Computed tomography perfusion (CTP) has a high diagnostic value in the detection of acute ischemic stroke in the anterior circulation. However, the diagnostic value in suspected posterior circulation (PC) stroke is uncertain, and whole brain volume perfusion is not yet in widespread use. We therefore studied the additional value of whole brain volume perfusion to non-contrast CT (NCCT) and CT angiography source images (CTA-SI) for infarct detection in patients with suspected acute ischemic PC stroke. ⋯ Our findings in a large cohort of consecutive patients show that CTP detects significantly more ischemic strokes in the PC than CTA and NCCT alone.
-
Cerebrovascular diseases · Jan 2016
Frequency and Risk Factors for Cerebral Arterial Disease in a HIV/AIDS Neuroimaging Cohort.
Infection with HIV predisposes patients to a myriad of neurologic disorders, including cerebrovascular disease. The pathophysiology is likely multifactorial, with proposed mechanisms including infectious vasculitis, HIV-induced endothelial dysfunction and adverse effects of combination antiretroviral therapy (cART). Epidemiologic data on clinically evident cerebral vasculopathy in HIV-infected adults is scarce, even though stroke hospitalizations are rising in this patient population. ⋯ There was a high frequency of cerebral arterial disease in this neuroimaging cohort of HIV/AIDS patients. A history of cART use and a history of tobacco abuse were independent risk factors for vasculopathy, though these findings should be confirmed with large-scale prospective studies.