The correlation between lacunes and microbleeds on magnetic resonance imaging in consecutive 180 patients

Background and objective Microbleeds on T2-weighted magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) represent a hemorrhagic type of small vessel disease. Small vessel disease causes both intracerebral hemorrhages and lacunar infarctions. We studied clinical background and MRI fi ndings of the patients to clarify the correlation between microbleeds and lacunes. Method This study consisted of 180 consecutive patients who underwent brain MRI using 1.5T system in our hospital for a year. We obtained T2-weighted gradient-echo imaging as well as T1 and T2-weighted images. We statistically identifi ed the factors related to the presence of microbleeds in all patients. The distribution of lacunes and microbleeds on MRI was compared to clarify the correlation of the lesions in the patients who had both lesions. Result The overall prevalence of microbleeds was 41.1% (74 of 180 patients). Logistic regression analysis indicated that previous stroke, leukoaraiosis and lacunes were signifi cantly correlated with microbleeds. In the patients who have both microbleeds and lacunes, lesions are tended to locate in thalamus and basal ganglia, especially incidence of lacunes are signifi cantly greater compared with other regions. Thirty-six of 398 lesions (9.05%) diagnosed as lacunes with T1and T2-weighted imaging were demonstrated as microbleeds with T2-weighted gradient-echo imaging. Conclusion Lacunes, leukoaraiosis as a hypertensive change on MRI had statistically signifi cant correlation with the presence of microbleeds. T2-weighted gradient-echo imaging should be included in the imaging protocol for cerebrovascular disease, because T1and T2-weighted imaging recognizing some of the microbleeds as lacunar infarction. (Received : November 28, 2005, Accepted : February 2, 2006)