Lesion patterns of small deep infarcts have different clinical and imaging characteristics.
BACKGROUND
The mechanisms underlying small deep infarcts in the subcortical area are unknown. This study used coronal diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) to investigate clinical and radiological findings in patients with small deep infarcts.


METHODS
This was a retrospective study of consecutively admitted patients with small deep infarcts in the subcortical area. We divided the patients into two groups as follows: (1) those with isolated lesion (IL) defined as an IL in the parenchyma by coronal DWI (group A), and (2) those with linear lesion (LL), defined as a LL extending to the basal surface on coronal DWI (group B).


RESULTS
A total of 86 patients were included in this study, with 43 patients in each group. Neurological decline and ipsilateral MCA stenosis were observed more frequently in group B than in group A. Fluid-attenuated inversion recovery (FLAIR) signals showed that white-matter hyperintensity was more severe in group A than in group B (p = 0.015).


CONCLUSIONS
This study suggests that LL patterns of small deep infarcts may result in a higher rate of neurological decline and ipsilateral MCA stenosis than IL patterns.
Department of Neurology, Chonnam National University Hospital, Gwangju, Korea.
Joon-Tae
JT
Kim
Geum-Jin
GJ
Yoon
Man-Seok
MS
Park
Tai-Seung
TS
Nam
Seong-Min
SM
Choi
Seung-Han
SH
Lee
Byeong-Chae
BC
Kim
Myeong-Kyu
MK
Kim
Ki-Hyun
KH
Cho
D000368:Aged; D001921:Brain / Q000473:pathology*; D020520:Brain Infarction / Q000175:diagnosis*; D001931:Brain Mapping; D016009:Chi-Square Distribution; D038524:Diffusion Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D005260:Female; D007839:Functional Laterality; D006801:Humans; D018810:Magnetic Resonance Angiography / Q000379:methods; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009460:Neurologic Examination / Q000379:methods; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric