A Comparative Analysis to find out the Value of Magnetic Resonance SWI in the Diagnosis of Intracranial Micro-hemorrhage in Patients with Acute Hepatic Encephalopathy

TL;DR

This study compares MRI SWI with other imaging methods to detect brain micro-hemorrhages in patients with acute hepatic encephalopathy.

Contribution

The study demonstrates that SWI has higher sensitivity than CT and conventional MRI for detecting micro-hemorrhages in AHE patients.

Findings

SWI detected more intracranial micro-hemorrhages than T1WI, T2WI, and CT.

SWI showed higher lesion detection rates compared to other imaging techniques.

SWI is more effective for clinical diagnosis of micro-hemorrhages in AHE patients.

Abstract

Acute hepatic encephalopathy significantly damages the normal functioning of human nervous system in a very short period of time. AHE gives birth to micro-hemorrhages which increases the morbidity and mortality associated with this disease. Hence, early diagnosis of this disease and its impacts is a key area of interest.

To investigate value of magnetic resonance susceptibility weighted imaging (SWI) in the diagnosis of intracranial micro-hemorrhage in patients with acute hepatic encephalopathy (AHE).

85 AHE patients in our hospital from January 2017 to September 2019 were enrolled and received the CT and MRI examinations. The intracranial micro-hemorrhage and lesions detected by CT and MRI were compared to find out the sensitivity of each modality with special focus on SWI technique.

The detection rate of intracranial micro-hemorrhage in SWI was higher than the detection rate of intracranial micro-hemorrhage observed in T1WI, T2WI and CT (P<0.05). Similarly, the detection rate of lesions in SWI was considerably better than the detection rate of such lesions observed in T1WI, T2WI and CT (P<0.05).

Magnetic resonance SWI has significantly better sensitivity in AHE patients with intracerebral micro-hemorrhage, which has proved to be of high value in clinical diagnosis.

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