Introduction: Haemostatic imbalance can cause stroke, which is one of the leading causes of death and disability. Ischemic stroke is caused by thrombi, whose properties can affect treatment outcome. Optimising stroke diagnosis and treatment protocol is essential for better outcome, where in imaging diagnostics CT is most commonly used, although MR has been proven to be more efficient. Regardless of the diagnostic imaging modality used, presently no emphasis is put on definition of thrombi properties.
Objectives: With the aim of further optimising the stroke protocol, we investigated the possibility of CT and MR measurements in defining the structure of artificial thrombi. We also wanted to apply these findings clinically, where we observed correlations between CT and MR properties of thrombi with treatment and clinical parameters of actual patients.
Methods and materials: Firstly, we investigated effectiveness of NMR and CT analysis in defining the structure of artificial thrombi. In the clinical part, patients with confirmed ischemic stroke had successfully removed thrombi, which were later analysed by MR and histology. Clinical and treatment data were also obtained, as well as CT numbers from the corresponding CT images of thrombi. All data were appropriately statistically analysed.
Results and discussion: MR diffusion and CT measurements of artificial thrombi successfully differentiated between RBC and platelet thrombi and all measurements were sensitive to changes in RBC proportion. In the clinical study, we found significant correlations between the variability of diffusion and the duration of mechanical recanalization, deviation in mean CT number and the number of passes with the thrombectomy device, length of the thrombus, RBC proportion, and other factors. If MR diagnostics would achieve adequate spatial resolution with an acceptable imaging time, it would be more useful in defining thrombus properties, as it is sensitive to molecular changes, while CT only detects changes in absorption.
Conclusions: Further optimization of stroke treatment is possible, and our study can serve as a basis for further research in this area, where advances in CT (spectral CT) and MR diagnostics suggest that we can focus more on thrombi properties.
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