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Acute and Subacute Intracerebral Hemorrhages: Comparison of MR Imaging at 1.5 and 3.0 T—Initial Experience¹

¹ From the Departments of Clinical Radiology (T.A., B.T., W.S., H.K., W.H.), Neurology (M.S.), Pediatrics (O.D.), and Neurosurgery (F.M.), University of Muenster, Albert-Schweitzer-Strasse 33, 48149 Muenster, Germany. Received March 1, 2003; revision requested May 23; final revision received January 19, 2004; accepted February 13. Address correspondence to T.A. (e-mail: allkemp@uni-muenster.de).

PURPOSE: To assess and describe the appearance of intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH) at 3.0-T magnetic resonance (MR) imaging as compared with the appearance of this lesion type at 1.5-T MR imaging.

MATERIALS AND METHODS: Sixteen patients with 21 parenchymal ICHs were examined. ICHs were classified as hyperacute, acute, early subacute, late subacute, or chronic. Patients underwent 1.5- and 3.0-T MR imaging with T2-weighted fast spin-echo, fluid-attenuated inversion-recovery (FLAIR), and T1-weighted spin-echo (1.5-T) and gradient-echo (3.0-T) sequences within 4 hours of each other. The central (ie, core) and peripheral (ie, body) parts of the ICHs were analyzed quantitatively by using contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) calculations derived from signal intensity (SI) measurements; these values were statistically evaluated by using the Mann-Whitney U test. Two readers qualitatively determined SIs of the cores and bodies of the ICHs, degrees of apparent susceptibility artifacts, and lesion ages. The ² test was used to determine statistically significant differences.

RESULTS: With the exception of the bodies of late subacute ICHs at 3.0-T T2-weighted imaging, which had increased positive CNRs and SI scores (P .05), all parts of the ICHs at all stages showed increased negative CNRs and SI scores at 3.0-T FLAIR and T2-weighted imaging, as compared with these values at 1.5 T (P .05). No significant CNR or SI score differences at any ICH stage were observed between 1.5-T spin-echo and 3.0-T gradient-echo T1-weighted imaging (P > .05). With the exception of minor susceptibility artifacts seen in acute and early subacute ICHs at 3.0-T T1-weighted gradient-echo imaging, no susceptibility artifacts were noticed. The ages of most lesions were identified correctly without significant differences between the two field strengths (P > .05), with the exception of the ages of acute ICHs, which were occasionally misinterpreted as early subacute lesions at 3.0 T.

CONCLUSION: At 3.0 T, all parts of acute and early subacute ICHs had significantly increased hypointensity on FLAIR and T2-weighted MR images as compared with the SIs of these lesions at 1.5 T. However, 1.5- and 3.0-T MR images were equivalent in the determination of acute to late subacute ICHs.

© RSNA, 2004

Index terms: Brain, hemorrhage, 13.367, 13.433, 13.434 • Brain, MR, 13.121412, 13.121413, 13.121415, 13.121416, 13.12146 • Magnetic resonance (MR), high-field-strength imaging, 13.121412, 13.121413, 13.121415, 13.121416, 13.12146

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