Accuracy of Non-Enhanced CT in Detecting Early Ischemic Edema Using Frequency Selective Non-Linear Blending.
PLoS One
; 11(1): e0147378, 2016.
Article
in En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-26809010
ABSTRACT
PURPOSE:
Ischemic brain edema is subtle and hard to detect by computed tomography within the first hours of stroke onset. We hypothesize that non-enhanced CT (NECT) post-processing with frequency-selective non-linear blending ("best contrast"/BC) increases its accuracy in detecting edema and irreversible tissue damage (infarction).METHODS:
We retrospectively analyzed the NECT scans of 76 consecutive patients with ischemic stroke (exclusively middle cerebral artery territory-MCA) before and after post-processing with BC both at baseline before reperfusion therapy and at follow-up (5.73±12.74 days after stroke onset) using the Alberta Stroke Program Early CT Score (ASPECTS). We assessed the differences in ASPECTS between unprocessed and post-processed images and calculated sensitivity, specificity, and predictive values of baseline NECT using follow-up CT serving as reference standard for brain infarction.RESULTS:
NECT detected brain tissue hypoattenuation in 35 of 76 patients (46.1%). This number increased to 71 patients (93.4%) after post-processing with BC. Follow-up NECT confirmed brain infarctions in 65 patients (85.5%; p = 0.012). Post-processing increased the sensitivity of NECT for brain infarction from 35/65 (54%) to 65/65 (100%), decreased its specificity from 11/11 (100%) to 7/11 (64%), its positive predictive value (PPV) from 35/35 (100%) to 65/69 (94%) and increased its accuracy 46/76 (61%) to 72/76 (95%).CONCLUSIONS:
This post-hoc analysis suggests that post-processing of NECT with BC may increase its sensitivity for ischemic brain damage significantly.
Full text:
1
Collection:
01-internacional
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Brain Edema
/
Tomography, X-Ray Computed
/
Stroke
Type of study:
Observational_studies
/
Prognostic_studies
/
Risk_factors_studies
Limits:
Adult
/
Aged
/
Aged80
/
Female
/
Humans
/
Male
/
Middle aged
Language:
En
Journal:
PLoS One
Journal subject:
CIENCIA
/
MEDICINA
Year:
2016
Document type:
Article
Affiliation country:
Germany