Jee-Hyun Kwon

High resolution MRI difference between moyamoya disease and intracranial atherosclerosis

Along with intracranial atherosclerotic disease (ICAD), moyamoya disease (MMD) is the most common cause of middle cerebral artery (MCA) occlusion in Asians. Although they have differing vascular wall pathologies, conventional angiographic evaluation methods cannot easily differentiate MMD from ICAD in certain situations, such as in young patients with atherosclerotic risk factors. High resolution magnetic resonance imaging (HR‐MRI) findings for the diseased segments of MCAs in MMD and symptomatic ICAD were compared to further elucidate differences in arterial wall changes.

Predictive Value of Pulse Pressure in Acute Ischemic Stroke for Future Major Vascular Events

Background and Purpose— This study aimed to investigate whether pulse pressure (PP) obtained during the acute stage of ischemic stroke can be used as a predictor for future major vascular events. Methods— Using a multicenter prospective stroke registry database, patients who were hospitalized for ischemic stroke within 48 hours of onset were enrolled in this study. We analyzed blood pressure (BP) data measured during the first 3 days from onset. Primary and secondary outcomes were time to a composite of stroke recurrence, myocardial infarction, all-cause death, and time to stroke recurrence, respectively. Results— Of 9840 patients, 4.3% experienced stroke recurrence, 0.2% myocardial infarction, and 7.3% death during a 1-year follow-up period. In Cox proportional hazards models including both linear and quadratic terms of PP, PP had a nonlinear J-shaped relationship with primary (for a quadratic term of PP, P=0.004) and secondary (P<0.001) outcomes. The overall effects of PP and other BP parameters on primary and secondary outcomes were also significant (P<0.05). When predictive power of BP parameters was compared using a statistic of −2 log-likelihood differences, PP was a stronger predictor than systolic BP (8.49 versus 5.91; 6.32 versus 4.56), diastolic BP (11.42 versus 11.05; 10.07 versus 4.56), and mean atrial pressure (8.75 versus 5.91; 7.03 versus 4.56) for the primary and secondary outcomes, respectively. Conclusions— Our study shows that PP when measured in the acute period of ischemic stroke has nonlinear J-shaped relationships with major vascular events and stroke recurrence, and may have a stronger predictive power than other commonly used BP parameters.

The impact of prior antithrombotic status on cerebral infarction in patients with atrial fibrillation.

BACKGROUND Anticoagulation effectively prevents cardioembolic stroke in atrial fibrillation (AF) patients, whereas it is less effective than antiplatelet therapy (AT) in noncardioembolic stroke prevention. We hypothesized that the ischemic lesion pattern and vascular patency would differ according to the antithrombotic treatment status in AF patients. METHODS The medical records of 1078 acute ischemic stroke patients with AF were retrospectively reviewed. Patients were classified according to medication at stroke onset: (1) optimal anticoagulation (OAC; international normalized ratio [INR] 1.7-3.0; n = 36); (2) suboptimal anticoagulation (SOAC; INR ≤1.7; n = 134); (3) AT (n = 285); and (4) control (no antithrombotic medication; n = 623). Imaging and clinical variables of each group were compared with that of controls. RESULTS Small cortical or single subcortical infarctions were more common in the OAC group than in controls (6% vs. 1% and 22% vs. 8%, respectively; standardized residual, 2.4 and 2.8). Multicirculatory infarctions were less common in the OAC group than in controls (0% vs. 11%; standardized residual, -2.0). Obstruction of the corresponding artery was less common in the OAC group than in controls (26.5% vs. 46.5%, P = .02). Initial neurologic severity was lower in the OAC and AT groups than in controls (P = .01 and .03, respectively). OAC and AT were independently associated with favorable functional outcome at 3-months (P = .015 and <.001, respectively). CONCLUSIONS Ischemic stroke can occur during OAC in AF patients. Small cortical or single subcortical lesions were more common than typical cardioembolic lesion patterns. OAC and AT were protective against severe neurologic deficit and independently associated with favorable outcome, but SOAC was not.

ATYPICAL REVERSIBLE POSTERIOR LEUKOENCEPHALOPATHY SYNDROME IN A CHRONIC HAEMODIALYSIS PATIENT WITH SEVERE HYPERTENSION

Reversible posterior leukoencephalopathy syndrome (RPLS) refers to a clinicoradiologic entity characterized by headache, altered mentality, cortical visual disturbance, seizure and transient vasogenic oedema predominantly involving the bilateral subcortical white matter of parietooccipital lobes on neuroimaging. We herein describe an atypical RPLS manifested by chorea with only the bilateral thalamic involvements.