Radiology, Vol 155, 649-653, Copyright © 1985 by Radiological Society of North America
Experimental intracranial septic infarction: magnetic resonance enhancement
RI Grossman, PM Joseph, G Wolf, D Biery, J McGrath, HL Kundel, JE Fishman, RA Zimmerman, HI Goldberg and LT Bilaniuk
Intracranial brain abscess was produced in three monkeys by embolization of
a small pledget of polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) soaked in a broth of
Staphylococcus aureus. Imaging of the chronic stable abscess was performed
on the General Electric 8800 CT unit (Milwaukee, Wis.) and a 1.4 T
superconducting small bore imaging system. Magnetic resonance imaging
included saturation recovery, inversion recovery, and spin echo techniques.
MR imaging was also performed after paramagnetic enhancement using
gadolinium-DPTA (Gd-DTPA). Our results show that paramagnetic enhancement
with T1-weighted imaging adds specificity and enables rapid assessment of
abnormalities of the blood-brain barrier. T2-weighted imaging without
paramagnetic enhancement was very sensitive in defining areas of
abnormality in the brain but in our experiment lacked specificity.
T2-weighted imaging with Gd-DTPA demonstrated no obvious change in the
appearance of the lesion. The combination of T1- weighted Gd-DTPA and
T2-weighted imaging appeared complementary in our experiment, and these
images correlated well with the pathologic findings.
