MRI-based mismatch detection in acute ischemic stroke: Optimal PWI maps and thresholds validated with PET

Perfusion-weighted (PW) magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is used to detect penumbral tissue in acute stroke, but the selection of optimal PW-maps and thresholds for tissue at risk detection remains a matter of debate. We validated the performance of PW-maps with 15O-water-positron emission tomography (PET) in a large comparative PET-MR cohort of acute stroke patients. In acute and subacute stroke patients with back-to-back MRI and PET imaging, PW-maps were validated with 15O-water-PET. We pooled two different cerebral blood flow (CBF) PET-maps to define the critical flow (CF) threshold, (i) quantitative (q)CBF-PET with the CF threshold <20 ml/100 g/min and (ii) normalized non-quantitative (nq)CBF-PET with a CF threshold of <70% (corresponding to <20 ml/100 g/min according to a previously published normogram). A receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis was performed to specify the accuracy and the optimal critical flow threshold of each PW-map as defined by PET. In 53 patients, (stroke to imaging: 9.8 h; PET to MRI: 52 min) PW-time-to-maximum (Tmax) with a threshold >6.1 s (AUC = 0.94) and non-deconvolved PW-time-to-peak (TTP) >4.8 s (AUC = 0.93) showed the best performance to detect the CF threshold as defined by PET. PW-Tmax with a threshold >6.1 s and TTP with a threshold >4.8 s are the most predictive in detecting the CF threshold for MR-based mismatch definition.