Journal of neuroimaging : official journal of the American Society of Neuroimaging
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Comparative Study
Comparing Two Processing Pipelines to Measure Subcortical and Cortical Volumes in Patients with and without Mild Traumatic Brain Injury.
To compare volumetric results from NeuroQuant® and FreeSurfer in a service member setting. Since the advent of medical imaging, quantification of brain anatomy has been a major research and clinical effort. Rapid advancement of methods to automate quantification and to deploy this information into clinical practice has surfaced in recent years. NeuroQuant® is one such tool that has recently been used in clinical settings. Accurate volumetric data are useful in many clinical indications; therefore, it is important to assess the intermethod reliability and concurrent validity of similar volume quantifying tools. ⋯ While reliability between the two segmenting tools is fair to excellent, volumetric outcomes are statistically different between the two methods. As suggested by both developers, structure segmentation should be visually verified prior to clinical use and rigor should be used when interpreting results generated by either method.
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Recently, several studies reported increased signal intensity (SI) of the dentate nucleus (DN) on unenhanced T1-weighted magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) as a possible consequence of multiple applications of gadolinium-based contrast agents. The aim of this study was to investigate with sodium (23 Na) MRI possible tissue abnormalities of the DN in multiple sclerosis (MS) patients. ⋯ Normal sodium signal in the T1-hyperintense DN in MS patients may point to relative tissue integrity despite gadolinium deposition in this area.
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Compared to the intracranial vasculature in sickle cell disease (SCD) patients, the morphologic changes of the extracranial vasculature in SCD patients are less well understood. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the tortuosity of the extracranial carotid and vertebral arteries in patients with SCD compared to age-matched controls. ⋯ Extracranial carotid and vertebral arterial tortuosity is increased in SCD patients. This could be related to aberrations in hemodynamics from nonlaminar flow in these vessels. These increases in extracranial vascular tortuosity could potentially lead to alterations in intracranial vascular tortuosity and may be an independent risk factor for cerebral infarct.
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The diagnostic value of susceptibility-weighted magnetic resonance imaging of acute stroke patients has shown potential as a surrogate marker of impaired hemodynamics. We investigate the value of asymmetrical hypointense cerebral vessels (HV) for the identification of vessel status and tissue at risk of infarction (TaR). ⋯ Visual analysis of HV in SWI identifies tissue at risk in patients with anterior circulation stroke. Potentially pre-existing extracranial ICA occlusions leading to prominent HV have to be considered as a confounding factor.
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We report on the prognostic role of the cross-sectional area (CSA) enlargement and conduction block (CB) in radial neuropathy (Saturday night palsy [SNP]). ⋯ The CSA enlargement, but not the CB, seems to have a negative prognostic role in patients with SNP.