Acute cerebral infarction

Thirty-five patients with acute (<48 hours) cerebral infarction were prospectively evaluated with gradient-echo (GE) MR imaging (500/60 [repetition time msec/echo times msec]; flip angle, 300), and the results were compared with those of spin-echo (SE) MR and CT. All MR studies were obtained at 0.6 T. The authors' results indicate that GE imaging is very sensitive to the presence of hemorrhage and is a clinically useful technique for evaluating infarcts in which subtle or no evidence of hemorrhage is seen with SE MR imaging or CT. Infarcts without hemorrhage are more apparent on SE sequence. Though susceptibility-induced artifacts and decreased signal-to-noise ratio limit its diagnostic efficacy, GE imaging is nonetheless adjunct to SE imaging in the evaluation of cerebral infarction