http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/news/fullstory_42588.html

 
      

Brain Lesions After Stroke May Predict Future Episodes
MRI scans could help foretell patients' risk for subsequent incidences 
URL of this page: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/news/fullstory_42588.html
(*this news item will not be available after 03/13/2007)


 

HealthDay

Robert Preidt

Wednesday, December 13, 2006



WEDNESDAY, Dec. 13 (HealthDay News) -- Ischemic stroke patients who have
recurrent asymptomatic brain lesions within three months of their initial stroke
are at increased risk for subsequent strokes, says a U.S. study in the December
issue of the journal Archives of Neurology. 

An ischemic stroke occurs as a result of inadequate blood flow to the brain.

Previous research found that asymptomatic (silent) brain lesions -- changes in
brain tissue that occur in areas where blood flow is blocked or reduced -- occur
more frequently than symptomatic lesions up to three months after a stroke,
according to background information in the article.

The authors of this current study investigated whether silent brain lesions
detected by MRI scans could help predict stroke patients' risk for subsequent
strokes.

Researchers at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke
studied 120 ischemic stroke patients. Each patient had an MRI brain scan within
24 hours of the stroke and five days after the stroke. Of those patients, 68 had
a follow-up MRI after 30 days or up to 90 days after the stroke.

The study found that patients who had silent ischemic lesions on the 30- or
90-day MRI were about 6.5 times more likely than other patients to suffer a
subsequent ischemic stroke. Patients with silent lesions on any of the MRI scans
(24 hours, five days, 30 days, or 90 days) had an increased risk of death from
vascular causes, recurrent ischemic stroke or transient ischemic attack.

"It is a matter of circumstance, rather than tissue pathological features, that
determines whether cerebral ischemia is symptomatic or silent," the study
authors wrote. "Clinical symptoms depend on the size, location and number of new
lesions. Thus, we assume that the pathological process that causes silent lesion
recurrence on MRI is the same as the process that causes clinical recurrent
strokes. Magnetic resonance imaging may depict pathological changes before the
development of clinical stroke symptoms."





HealthDay

Copyright (c) 2006 ScoutNews, LLC. All rights reserved.


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Related MedlinePlus Pages:

MRI Scans - http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus//mriscans.html 
Stroke - http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus//stroke.html 
Date last updated: 14 December 2006

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