Introduction: MRI provides information that is useful for diagnosing ischemic stroke, selecting appropriate patients for thrombolytic therapy, and predicting the prognosis of ischemic stroke. Present study involves the comparative evaluation between DWI, T2-W and FLAIR sequences.
Material and Methods: Sample size: 91 In the present study, patients had MRI after presentation on a 1.5 T MR scanner (with 22 mT m_1 maximum strength gradients, including axial DWI, T2- weighted, fluid attenuated inversion recovery (FLAIR) sequences.
Inclusion criteria: Patient referred to the department of radio diagnosis with clinical diagnosis of acute stroke., Cases of all age group irrespective of sex.
Exclusion criteria: Patient who needed artificial respiration and patient who were otherwise unable to undergo the MR examinations were excluded., Patients with intracranial hemorrhage. All patients referred to the department of radio-diagnosis with acute stroke were clinically evaluated on the basis of history and clinical examination.
Results: Data on reproducibility of MRI scan suggested that DWI clearly delineated recent damage in 91 patients (100%) as compared with 63 (69%) in whom lesions were identified or suspected on conventional T2-weighted images. DWI provided information not accessible with T2-weighted imaging in 63 patients when evidence of lesion multiplicity or detection of clinically unrelated recent lesions was included for comparison. Reproducibility observed for FLAIR (81; 89%) was found to be between DWI and T2-W. Our study also suggested that reproducibility of DWI based MRI service is both feasible and sustainable in the setting of a district general hospital and most clinicians feel that this is a significant improvement to stroke services.
Conclusion: Our results provide clear evidence of a significant diagnostic contribution of DWI beyond this acute phase. In comparison with T2-weighted and Flair sequences, DWI proved to be superior in delineating areas of recent ischemic damage in about one third of all patients. This higher sensitivity of DWI served not only to pinpoint stroke-related infarcts but also helped to detect clinically unsuspected lesions in more number of patients.
