The neuroradiology journal
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Objective A small number of patients has been reported to develop a completely new or de novo arteriovenous malformation (AVM) after brain surgery, haemorrhage, head trauma or ischaemic stroke. The natural history of these lesions is unknown. In this review, both ruptured and unruptured de novo AVMs and their treatments were reviewed. ⋯ Conclusion Post-natal de novo AVMs have been reported. Their annual haemorrhage risk is 4.8%. Most of them are treated by surgical resection and are associated with morbidity and mortality.
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Aim Sella turcica bridging and ossified carotico-clinoid ligament are two variants of the sella turcica, the origin of which is partially unknown. These variations should be properly recognised, as they may hamper the removal of the anterior clinoid process in surgical procedures. Therefore, our aim was to determine the prevalence of these two anatomical variants and to investigate their prevalence according to patient sex and age in a series of maxilla computed tomography scans. ⋯ Only sella turcica bridging showed a correlation with age ( P = 0.007). In addition, the two variants were often associated, as patients without sella turcica bridging usually did not show ossified carotico-clinoid ligament ( P < 0.001). Discussion Our results suggest an association between the two variants, and provide a novel contribution to the debate around their origin.
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Objective The objective of this article is to evaluate advanced techniques of diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) and apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) measurements of the optic nerve in patients with optic neuritis. Methods In this prospective and institutional review board-approved trial, we examined 15 patients with acute visual loss and clinical signs of optic neuritis including thin-slice multi-shot segmented readout of long variable echo trains (rs-EPI, RESOLVE) DWI and reduced field-of view DWI using a parallel transmit system (rFOV-EPI). Conventional single-shot echo-planar DWI (ss-EPI) of the whole brain was available in 13 patients. ⋯ Using rFOV-EPI improves subjective image quality compared with rs-EPI and ss-EPI. Due to its higher spatial resolution, rFOV-EPI was the preferred technique in our study and can ensure the diagnosis in the intraorbital segment. However, artefacts occur in the canalicular and intracranial segment of the optic nerve, therefore contrast-enhanced T1-weighted images must still be considered as the gold standard.
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Background Medication-overuse headache is a common clinical entity, but neuroimaging studies investigating volumetric and microstructural alterations of the brain in medication-overuse headache are rare. Therefore, in the current longitidunal study we evaluated gray matter volume and white matter integrity in patients with medication-overuse headache before and after drug withdrawal. Methods A prospective study evaluated 27 patients with medication-overuse headache and 27 age-, sex-, and education-matched healthy adults. ⋯ White matter diffusional and gray matter morphological alterations including volume, fractional anisotropy, radial diffusivity, and axial diffusivity analyses showed no significant relationship in the patients before and six months after withdrawal of analgesics. Also no difference was observed between the patients versus controls. Conclusion Our data demonstrated no structural alterations within the brain in medication-overuse headache.
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Purpose The objectives of this study were to determine if HIV-infected patients treated with highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART), without dementia, suffer from longitudinal gray matter (GM) volume loss, changes in white matter (WM) integrity and deterioration in functional connectivity at rest, in an average interval of 30 months. Methods Clinically stable HIV-positive patients (on HAART, CD4 + T lymphocyte > 200 cells/μl, and viral loads <50 copies/μl) were recruited. None of them had HIV-associated dementia. ⋯ Five resting-state networks were identified in our patients. In the second MRI, HIV-positive patients presented increased areas of functional connectivity in visual pathways, frontoparietal and cerebellar networks, compared with the first MRI (considering p < 0.05). Conclusions RS-fMRI revealed potentially compensatory longitudinal alterations in the brains of HIV-positive patients, attempting to compensate for brain damage related to the infection.