[A case of medial medullary syndrome detected by diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance imaging].
We report an 84-year-old woman with medial medullary syndrome diagnosed by diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). She was admitted because of left hemiparesis and hypesthesia. T2-weighted and diffusion-weighted MRI showed a high signal lesion at the right medial medulla oblongata 10 days after the onset. It is well known that diffusion-weighted MRI is useful for detecting supratentrial cerebral ischemic lesions in the extremely acute stage. However, to our knowledge, there have been only a few reports of diffusion-weighted MRI in patients with ischemic stroke of the medulla oblongata. Normal nerve fibers in the direction perpendicular to the motion-probing gradient (MPG) shows a high signal by diffusion-weighted MRI (anisotropy of apparent diffusion cofficient [ADC]). Normal nerve fibers in the pyramidal tract of medulla oblongata also shows a high signal when the MPG pulse is applied in the x and y directions. We solved this problem by using isotropic diffusion-weighted imaging and were able to detect ischemic lesion of medial medullary infarction in the acute phase.
Nakamura
T
T
Department of Neurology, Research Institute for Neurological Diseases and Geriatrics, Kyoto Prefectural University of Medicine.
Makino
M
M
Ebisu
T
T
Nakase
T
T
Umeda
M
M
Tanaka
C
C
Nakajima
K
K
D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001921:Brain / Q000473:pathology*; D002544:Cerebral Infarction / Q000175:diagnosis*; D005260:Female; D006429:Hemiplegia / Q000175:diagnosis; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000379:methods; D008526:Medulla Oblongata / Q000098:blood supply*