Diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance imaging in diagnosis of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease

Background Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD), a rare disease, is uncharacterized by computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). This study was aimed to evaluate the diffusion-weighted MRI (DWI) manifestations of CJD and to discuss their diagnostic value. Methods The findings of T1-weighted MRI (T1 WI), T2-weighted MRI (T2WI), DWI and post-contrast MRI in 5 patients (3 patients with biopsy-proven CJD and 2 patients with clinically-proven CJD) were retrospectively analyzed in this study. Results Four out of the 5 patients had cerebral atrophy of various degrees. One patient showed symmetric high signal intensity at the bilateral globus pallidus and the head of the caudate nucleus, with very high signal in the cerebral cortex on the DWI. This patient only had symmetric slightly high signal at the bilateral globus pallidus and putamen on T2WI. One patient had high signal intensity at the basal ganglia and cerebral cortex on DWI, but abnormal T2 signal intensity at the bilateral paraventricular white matter on MRI. Two patients presented with widely gyri-like high signal intensity at the cortex on DWI, but routine MRI showed bilateral paraventricular long T2 signal intensity in 1 patient and no abnormal findings in another. No abnormalities were shown by both routine MRI and DWI in the last patient. Conclusions DWI is more sensitive than its conventional counterpart in the depiction of CJD. DWI is more sensitive to detect cortical abnormal signal intensity in CJD not detected by T2WI. Chin Med J 2006; 119(15):1242-1247