Toward patient-tailored perfusion thresholds for prediction of stroke outcome

Multiple patient-specific clinical and radiologic parameters impact traditional perfusion thresholds used to classify/determine tissue outcome. We sought to determine whether modified baseline perfusion thresholds calculated by integrating baseline perfusion and clinical factors better predict tissue fate and clinical outcome.

CTP within 4.5 hours of acute anterior circulation stroke onset and 5- to 7-day MR imaging were performed for 203 patients with stroke, divided into derivation (n = 114) and validation (n = 89) data bases. Affected regions were operationally classified as infarct and noninfarct according to baseline CTP and follow-up FLAIR imaging. Perfusion thresholds were derived for each of the infarct and noninfarct regions, without and with transformation by baseline clinical and radiologic variables by using a general linear mixed model. Performance of transformed and nontransformed perfusion thresholds for tissue fate and 90-day clinical outcome prediction was then tested in the derivation data base. Reproducibility of models was verified by using bootstrapping and validated in an independent cohort.

Perfusion threshold transformation by clinical and radiologic baseline parameters significantly improved tissue fate prediction for both gray matter and white matter (P < .001). Transformed thresholds improved the 90-day outcome prediction for CBF and time-to-maximum (P < .001). Transformed relative CBF and absolute time-to-maximum values demonstrated maximal GM and WM accuracies in the derivation and validation cohorts (relative CBF GM: 91%, 86%; WM: 86%, 83%; absolute time-to-maximum 88%, 79%, and 80%, 76% respectively).

Transformation of baseline perfusion parameters by patient-specific clinical and radiologic parameters significantly improves the accuracy of tissue fate and clinical outcome prediction.