Role and efficacy of diffusion weighted imaging in evaluation of intracranial pathologies

This study aims to assess the role & efficacy of Diffusion-weighted imaging in evaluation of intracranial pathologies. After achieving patient's informed consent and Institutional review board approval, total 80 cases of various intracranial pathologies of all age groups and either sex were evaluated. All MR images were obtained with a 1.5-T superconducting system (Siemens Medical Healthcare) using a circularly polarized head coil. Out of 80 cases, 2 cases showed no findings on MR (conventional and diffusion MR), and a total of 125 lesions was found in 78 cases. Infarct (68%) was the commonest lesion seen in our study. Of these, acute infarcts which presented within 24 hours of onset of ictus represented 70%, Hyper-acute infarcts (9.41%), Sub-acute infarcts (10.5%) and Chronic infarcts (9.41%) were less common. In cases of acute infarcts of the total 60 lesions, Conventional MR (T2WI) and FLAIR could detect 96.6% of the lesions and diffusion MR had 100% detection rate for acute infarcts. Diffusion MR, conventional MR and FLAIR had equal (100%) detection rate. Both conventional and diffusion MR (100%) had equal detection rate for chronic infarcts. Among the non-infarct lesions, Meningioma were most common with 10 lesions (8%) detected on DW MR. Least common lesions detected by DW MR included Medulloblastoma & Subdural Empyema -1 Lesion (0.8%) each. DWI is more sensitive & diagnostic in cases of acute infarct when comparatively evaluated with conventional MR & FLAIR.