Associated ischemic lesions in intracranial hemorrhage: MRI study

Cerebral small-vessel disease is an important cause of a hemorrhagic stroke (HS) or a certain type of ischemic stroke (IS). Using magnetic resonance imaging, the frequency and the pattern of ischemic lesions between an HS group and an IS group were compared. Sixty-eight patients with HS and 104 patients with IS as a control group were enrolled in this study. The rate of grade 2 and 3 periventricular white matter lesions (WML) in the HS group was similar to that in the IS group. However, grade 2 and 3 lacunes (LAC) were more frequent in the HS group. These results show that the incidence of concomitant silent LAC is different from that of WML in HS patients. This suggests that the pathophysiology of WML and that of LAC is different and that the pathophysiology of HS is closely associated with that of LAC.