Assessment of the Ischemic Acute Stroke Using Magnetic Resonance Diffusion Weighted Imaging

Abstract

Diffusion-weighted MRI (DWI) is highly sensitive in detecting early cerebral ischemic changes in acute stroke patients. This study aimed to show the role of diffusion-weighted MRI (DWI) in the diagnosis of acute stroke. In this study, we compared the role of DWI with that of conventional MRI techniques. Furthermore, we compared the size of ischemic lesions on DWI scans with the fluid-attenuated inversion recovery (FLAIR) images. We performed T1-weighted imaging (T1WI), T2-weighted imaging (T2WI), FLAIR, and DWI MRI in 30 patients who presented with acute stroke. The size of ischemic lesions was measured on DWI and FLAIR images. With DWI, 100% of the ischemic lesions were detected, with FLAIR recovery 83% were detected, whereas with T1-weighted and T2-weighted images, only 63% of lesions were identified. The size of the lesion on DWI scans was larger than the FLAIR images. DWI is more sensitive than conventional MRI in detecting early ischemic lesions in acute stroke patients. The size of the lesions measured on DWI and FLAIR images in the first 6 h was larger than those measured between 6 h and 3 days. MRI is recommended strongly for the accurate diagnosis of acute stroke.