title: Imaging of acute stroke: CT and/or MRI.
abstract: Acute ischemic stroke is now clearly recognized as a medical emergency. As such diagnosis has to be done quickly and in a precise way during the therapeutic window. Both computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging are tools that can adequately demonstrate ischemia really very early on. MRI using diffusion techniques has a much higher sensitivity for acute lesions but its implementation has not been unproblematic due to initial resistance and some technical problems. Thus, very often CT is still preferred with MR used for situations where the answer given is not sufficient as well as for follow-up of lesions. However, the parallel development of new therapeutic strategies have rendered the precision of the tools more and more sophisticated and their combined use can help to improve patient outcomes in ways never imagined previously. No matter which technique is used, be it alone or in combination, the idea is to speed up and optimize management in order to provide early revascularization and reperfusion.
authors.affiliation: Service neuro-diagnostique et neuro-interventionnel, DISIM, 4, rue Gabrielle-Perret-Gentil, 1211 Genève, Switzerland; Service de neurologie, Genève, Switzerland. Electronic address: karl-olof.lovblad@hcuge.ch.
authors.forename: Karl-Olof
authors.initials: KO
authors.lastname: Lövblad
authors.affiliation: Service neuro-diagnostique et neuro-interventionnel, DISIM, 4, rue Gabrielle-Perret-Gentil, 1211 Genève, Switzerland; Service de neurologie, Genève, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Stephen
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Altrichter
authors.affiliation: Service neuro-diagnostique et neuro-interventionnel, DISIM, 4, rue Gabrielle-Perret-Gentil, 1211 Genève, Switzerland; Service de neurologie, Genève, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Vitor
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Mendes Pereira
authors.affiliation: Service neuro-diagnostique et neuro-interventionnel, DISIM, 4, rue Gabrielle-Perret-Gentil, 1211 Genève, Switzerland; Service de neurologie, Genève, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Maria
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Vargas
authors.affiliation: Service neuro-diagnostique et neuro-interventionnel, DISIM, 4, rue Gabrielle-Perret-Gentil, 1211 Genève, Switzerland; Service de neurologie, Genève, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Ana
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Marcos Gonzalez
authors.affiliation: Service neuro-diagnostique et neuro-interventionnel, DISIM, 4, rue Gabrielle-Perret-Gentil, 1211 Genève, Switzerland; Service de neurologie, Genève, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Sven
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Haller
authors.affiliation: Service neuro-diagnostique et neuro-interventionnel, DISIM, 4, rue Gabrielle-Perret-Gentil, 1211 Genève, Switzerland; Service de neurologie, Genève, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Roman
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Sztajzel
mesh_terms: D002533:Cerebral Angiography / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D018810:Magnetic Resonance Angiography / Q000379:methods*; D064847:Multimodal Imaging / Q000379:methods*; D009485:Neuroradiography / Q000379:methods; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D020521:Stroke / Q000175:diagnosis*; D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed / Q000379:methods*
keywords: Computed tomography; Imaging; Magnetic resonance imaging; Stroke