[CT findings in chronic cerebrovascular insufficiency (author's transl)]

CT examination in 100 patients affected by chronic cerebrovascular insufficiency showed a normal picture in 16 cases, while 84 subjects showed different degrees of atrophy, generalised and focal, controlateral or sometime omolateral to the infarct, with differing patterns. The mean age of subjects with normal CT was significantly lower in comparison with patients with definite atrophy. Besides the neurological picture and the time course, the patients' psychiatric status was also assessed: no definite relationship seems to exist between psychiatric disturbances and brain atrophy. Pseudobulbar syndrome was found in 46 cases and many of them showed cortical and mainly ventricular atrophy. This picture was very seldom found in patients with vertebro-basilar insufficiency. Localised cortical atrophy, on the contrary, was often associated with ischaemic stroke. The incidence of predisposing risk factors (hypertension, diabetes mellitus or high lipid levels) was greater in subjects with brain atrophy and older age than in patients with normal CT scan.