Article Text
Abstract
Acute basilar artery occlusion (ABAO) is a devastating disease that can produce significant brainstem injury. Pretreatment diffusion weighted imaging (DWI) demonstrating extensive brainstem involvement has been shown to predict a poor outcome regardless of reperfusion. This case report describes a patient presenting with coma secondary to ABAO. MRI at presentation demonstrated significant DWI abnormality in the majority of the bilateral pons. The basilar artery was endovascularly recanalized 8 h after stroke onset, and the patient had a marked clinical recovery with no deficit at 3 months. Follow-up imaging revealed significant reversal of the pontine lesion. This finding of brainstem DWI reversibility cautions against the use of DWI to select ABAO patients for intra-arterial stroke therapy. The degree of apparent diffusion coefficient reduction on pretreatment MRI may not adequately identify which DWI abnormal brainstem tissue is potentially reversible.
Statistics from Altmetric.com
Footnotes
Funding AJY was the 2007 recipient of the Neuroradiology Education and Research Foundation/Boston Scientific Fellowship in Cerebrovascular Disease Research.
Competing interests JAH is a consultant and shareholder in Intratech Medical.
Patient consent Obtained.
Ethics approval This study was approved by the institutional review board of the Partners Human Research Office.
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.