DTI of the visual pathway in cerebral lesions

Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) can be used to localise the visual pathway (VP). In the service of the neurosurgery we have been working since the beginning of this year to develop a protocol which is suitable for the every day clinical routine to show the tracts of the white matter. Many lesions of the brain concern the white matter. Up to date it is still difficult to portray the visual pathway. Many centers all around the world are actually trying to localize the visual pathway, yet it is still used for the research. The application of the DTI-data for surgical interventions remains still a rarity. We believe that using this technique it would reduce the intraoperative risk and improve the postoperative outcome. From the beginning of this year we have been able to localize the visual pathway in 14 patients with different illnesses and we performed also postoperative controls. Using this new technique we were able to minimize the intraoperative risk in our patients.