Significance of Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) in Diffuse Axonal Injury

Advantages of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to computerized tomography(CT) on diagnosis of diffuse axonal injury(DAI) were discussed. Twenty-three patients diagnosed as DAI defined by the criteria of Gennarelli were studied with CT and MRI. Lesions were demonstrated as high intensity area on MRI of T2 weighted imaging in all patients. These lesions were located only in cerebral white matter in the cases of mild DAI, whereas in the severe DAI located in a basal ganglia, corpus callosum, dorsal part of the brain stem as well as the cerebral white matter. As for the finding of CT, these parencymal lesions were not visualized in mild or moderate DAI.