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Study leaders hope that because of its increased diagnostic accuracy, MRI may lead to better patient outcomes and ultimately decrease the cost of stroke care, through increased use of acute treatments and earlier initiation of secondary prevention. “Based on these results, MRI should become the preferred imaging technique for diagnosing patients with acute stroke.”
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Our results show that MRI is twice as accurate in distinguishing stroke from non-stroke,” said Steven Warach, M.D., Ph.D., director of the NINDS Stroke Diagnostics and Therapeutic Section and senior investigator of the study. Most possible stroke victims are first evaluated by non-specialists, who may be reluctant to treat a patient for stroke without greater confidence in the accuracy of the diagnosis. “Many patients who come to hospitals with a suspected stroke ultimately have a different diagnosis. Non-contrast CT has been the standard in emergency stroke treatment, primarily to exclude hemorrhagic stroke, which cannot be treated with clot-busting therapies. Non-contrast CT and MRI were equally effective in the diagnosis of acute intracranial hemorrhage. Study results show immediate non-contrast MRI is about five times more sensitive than and twice as accurate as immediate non-contrast CT for diagnosing ischemic stroke. A contrast dye may be used in both imaging techniques to enhance visibility of certain areas or tissues. Standard MRI uses computer-generated radio waves and a powerful magnet to produce detailed slices or three-dimensional images of body structures and nerves. Standard CT uses x-rays which are passed through the body at different angles and processed by a computer as cross-sectional images, or slices of the internal structure of the body or organ.
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The researchers conducted the study to determine whether MRI was superior to CT for emergency diagnosis of acute ischemic and hemorrhagic stroke (caused by bleeding into the brain). In other words, brain injury may be completely avoided in some stroke victims by quick re-opening of the blocked blood vessel,” said Dr. “This study shows that approximately 25 percent of stroke patients who come to the hospital within three hours of onset, the time frame for approved clot-busting therapy, have no detectable signs of damage. “The patients involved in this study were the typical cross-section of suspected stroke patients that come into emergency rooms on a daily basis.”įurthermore, the study has good news for patients, according to Walter J. “These NIH research findings on acute stroke imaging are directly applicable to real-world clinical practice,” said NIH Director Elias A. Findings appear in the Januedition of The Lancet. The study was conducted by physicians at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), a part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The difference between MRI and CT was attributable to MRI’s superiority for detection of acute ischemic stroke - the most common form of stroke, caused by a blood clot. Results from the most comprehensive study to compare two imaging techniques for the emergency diagnosis of suspected acute stroke show that magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) can provide a more sensitive diagnosis than computed tomography (CT) for acute ischemic stroke.