Clinical and radiologic features and their relationships with neurofunctional scores in patients with acute cerebellar infarct.
BACKGROUND
Cerebellar infarct is a rare condition with very nonspecific clinical features. The aim of this study was to assess the full spectrum of the clinical characteristics, neuroimaging findings and neurofunctional analyses of cerebellar infarction, and the relationship between them.


METHODS
Data were collected from 59 patients admitted to our department during an 8-year period. We retrospectively analyzed the relationship between demographic characteristics, clinical symptomatology, etiological factors, functional condition, vascular distribution, frequency of subcortical white matter lesions (WMLs), and concomitant lesion outside the cerebellum in patients with acute cerebellar infarct (ACI) at time of admission.


RESULTS
The mean age in our series was 65.2 years, with most being male (57.6%). The posterior inferior cerebellar (PICA) artery was the most commonly affected territory at 62.7%. There was concomitant lesion outside the cerebellum in 45.7%. The main etiology in PICA was cardioembolism. While mean National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale on admission was 2.08 ± 1.67 in study group, modified Rankin Scale (mRS) on admission was detected to be mRS1 (n: 44, 74.5%) and mRS2 (n: 12, 20.3%) most frequently. Fourteen (35%) patients were detected to be in Fazekas stage 0; 11 (27.5%) patients in Fazekas stage 1; 6 (15%) patients in Fazekas stage 2; and 9 (22.5%) patients in Fazekas stage 3.


CONCLUSIONS
Cerebellar infarct is very heterogeneous. The other cerebral area infarcts which accompany ACI negatively affect neurologic functional scores. Although it is difficult to detect the relationship between WMLs and neurologic functional severity, timely detection of risk factors and their modulation may be associated with prevention and treatability of WMLs, and this may be one of the important points for prevention of stroke-related disability.
Department of Neurology, Meram Faculty of Medicine, Necmettin Erbakan University, Konya, Turkey.
Hasan Hüseyin
HH
Kozak
Department of Neurology, Meram Faculty of Medicine, Necmettin Erbakan University, Konya, Turkey.
Ali Ulvi
AU
Uca
Department of Radiology, Meram Faculty of Medicine, Necmettin Erbakan University, Konya, Turkey.
Necdet
N
Poyraz
Department of Neurology, Meram Faculty of Medicine, Necmettin Erbakan University, Konya, Turkey.
Süleyman Ömer
SÖ
Anliaçık
Department of Neurology, Meram Faculty of Medicine, Necmettin Erbakan University, Konya, Turkey.
Osman Serhat
OS
Tokgöz
Cerebellar infarct; neurofunctional condition; radiological features; subcortical white matter lesion