TITLE:
Diffusion Tensor Imaging without Complex Statistical Analysis Could Be Helpful for Diagnosis
AUTHORS:
Duzgun Yildirim, Deniz Alis, Cesur Samanci, Fethi Emre Ustabasioğlu, Onur Tutar, Atilla Ersen
KEYWORDS:
Central Nervous System, DTI, FA, MRI
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Medical Imaging,
Vol.6 No.3,
September
29,
2016
ABSTRACT: Objective: Thanks to fast developing
technology, visualization of fiber tracts at brain is possible. But with the
new developments, data processing and interpretation are becoming more
difficult. Actually interpretations in these fields are mostly in-group
analysis and are generally not useful on the basis of individual patient
evaluations. In these regards, we investigated our cases with diffusion tensor
imaging (DTI) and tried to show if the data could be interpreted simply by
radiologist’s eye or not. Material: Our study consisted of 31 cases that were
evaluated in our center with 3 Tesla Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) units.
Cranial DTI studies performed for ischemia, posttraumatic axonal injury,
congenital malformation, neoplasia, autism, mental retardation and epilepsy.
Cranial DTI was performed to demonstrate effected fiber tracts in neoplasia and
ischemia cases and was applied to identify any gross anomaly in microstructural
anatomy beside normal conventional MRI in other cases. DTI images were evaluated,
along with fused conventional T1 weighted 3D high-resolution images and FA
maps. DTI were performed at the first administration of the patients. Results:
In addition to chronic ischemic focuses in patients with ischemia, DTI-FA
images showed us relevant signal changes secondary to Wallerian degeneration in
two cases. In traumatic brain injury cases, though being isointense on
conventional sequences, FA values showed decreased values at the levels of the
axonal discontinuity. Major abnormalities of association and projection fibers
in congenital malformation cases were visualized at both 3D-DTI fused images
and FA map images. Displacement,infiltration, destruction fibers were
clearly visualized in neoplasia cases. However, any objective abnormality wasn’t
reported at any cases diagnosed with motor mental retardation, epilepsy or
neuropsychiatric diseases. Conclusion: Colored DTI images and FA maps are
helpful in the way of diagnosis in most cases with organic pathologies; it is
possible to obtain diagnostic information by vivacious images.