Published Online
on October 13, 2005

A more recent version of this article appeared on November 1, 2005

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Submitted on February 25, 2005
Revised on April 11, 2005
Accepted on April 15, 2005

Perfusion MRI Abnormalities in Speech or Motor Transient Ischemic Attack Patients

Andrea L. Krol; Shelagh B. Coutts MBChB^*; Jessica E. Simon MBChB; Michael D. Hill MD; Chul-Ho Sohn MD; Andrew M. Demchuk MD; for the VISION Study Group

From the Seaman Family MR Research Centre (A.L.K., S.B.C., J.E.S., C.-H.S., A.M.D.), Foothills Medical Centre, Calgary Health Region, Calgary, Alberta, Canada; the Departments of Clinical Neurosciences (S.B.C., J.E.S., M.D.H., A.M.D.), Community Health Sciences (M.D.H.), Medicine (M.D.H.), and Radiology (C.-H.S.), University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada; and the Department of Radiology (C.-H.S.), Keimyung University, South Korea.

^* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: shelagh.coutts{at}calgaryhealthregion.ca.

Background and Purpose--Transient ischemic attack (TIA) patients may deteriorate rapidly. MRI is being increasingly used to assess such patients. One possible mechanism of neurological worsening is the presence of perfusion abnormalities. We sought to identify what proportion of TIA patients had evidence of perfusion abnormalities on MRI.

Methods--TIA patients were prospectively enrolled and had a MRI completed as soon as possible. The images were assessed for the presence of perfusion abnormalities.

Results--Sixty-nine TIA patients were enrolled, and 62 had perfusion imaging. In 56 patients (81%), the symptoms had resolved before imaging. In 21 patients (33.9%), there was evidence of a perfusion abnormality defined by relative mean transit time delay. In 12 patients (19.4%), the perfusion abnormality was present despite having complete resolution of neurological symptoms. We found no relationship between the presence of a perfusion abnormality and the clinical outcome.

Conclusions--A proportion of TIA patients have perfusion abnormalities evident on MRI.

Key words: acute stroke • MRI • transient ischemic attack

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