Diffusion Weighted MRI: A Practical and Quick Approach to Evaluate Brain Death

作     者：Ihsan Nuri Akpinar Bediha Aygun Nuri Cagatay Cimsit Ozlem Turkoglu 

作者机构：Department of Radiology Medical Faculty Marmara Univeristy Istanbul Turkey Department of Radiology Haydarpasa Numune Education and Research Hospital Istanbul Turkey Department of Radiology Dr. Lutfi Kirdar Kartal Education and Research Hospital Istanbul Turkey 

出 版 物：《International Journal of Medical Physics, Clinical Engineering and Radiation Oncology》 (医学物理学、临床工程、放射肿瘤学（英文）)

年 卷 期：2015年第4卷第2期

页      面：113-123页

学科分类：1002[医学-临床医学] 100214[医学-肿瘤学] 10[医学] 

主　　题：DWI MRI Brain Death Transplantation 

摘      要：It is significantly important to define brain death with greater precision in terms of timing and accuracy. While in the past determination of brain death is simply based on conventional angiography, now with major technological advances the Diffusion-weighted MRI is a new method sensitive to cerebral ischemia which gives on the molecular level the deeply ischemic nature of the changes. Its value in brain death has been shown in various studies. In our study, we did a comparative overview of diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) with and magnetic resonance angiography (MRA) considering the contribution of ADC measurements from brain parenchyma, in the patients diagnosed with brain death by clinical criteria. We studied 16 brain deaths in serial studies, in which there is a prominent difference between the white and gray matter ADC values on diffusion MRI. In the postmortem brains, ADC values comparing with the normal brain parenchyma, were reduced 65% in white matter and 42% in gray matter. Also, the patients’ ADC values of gray and white matter were significantly lower than those of irreversible brain-ischemia patients’ in ADC values. In comparison to most of the other studies, in our study population studied is large, in which is a comprehensive study that results consistent with the literature. As a result we propose that in the definition of brain death Diffusion MRI and ADC measurements are reliable to show diffuse ishemic changes of brain parenchyma.