The diagnosis of intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH) has become precise with the advent of computerized tomography (CT). Little, however, is known concerning the long-term prognosis. Seventy consecutive patients with primary intracerebral hemorrhage (all known etiologies except hypertension excluded) proven by CT scan were studied. Follow up, averaging 2 1/2 years, was successful in all cases. The status of alertness, EKG, and clinical impression on admission were significant prognostic factors. As expected, mortality increased with size of the hematoma and ventricular rupture. Acute in hospital mortality was 40%. Another 17% died during the long-term follow up, but none of them from cerebrovascular disease. Ninety-two percent of the survivors were ambulatory at follow up. Hypertensive intracerebral hemorrhages, unlike aneurysms, rarely, if ever, rebleed. Patients are not likely to have a second bleed in another location. Hypertensive intracerebral hemorrhage is more common in blacks, especially young adult males with severe hypertension, but overall mortality is lower than thought prior to the CT scan. Most survivors can achieve independence and deserve aggression rehabilitation efforts.

A method is described for automatically tracking spatial modulation of magnetization tag lines on gated cardiac images. The method differs from previously reported methods in that it uses Fourier based spatial frequency and phase information to separately track horizontal and vertical tag lines. Use of global information from the frequency spectrum of an entire set of tag lines was hypothesized to result in a robust algorithm with decreased sensitivity to noise. The method was validated in several ways: first, actual tagged cardiac images at end diastole were deformed known amounts, and the algorithm's predictions compared to the known deformations. Second, tagged, gated images of the thigh muscle (assumed to have similar signal to noise characteristics as cardiac images, but to not deform with time) were created. Again the algorithmic predictions could be compared to the known (zero magnitude) deformations and to thigh images which had been artificially deformed. Finally, actual cardiac tagged images were acquired, and comparisons made between manual, visual, determinations of tag line locations, and those predicted by the algorithm. At 0.5 T, the mean bias of the method was < 0.34 mm even at large deformations and at late (noisy) times. The standard deviation of the method, estimated from the tagged thigh images, was < 0.7 mm even at late times. The method may be expected to have even lower error at higher field strengths.

No abstract

A minimum distance method for measuring myocardial thickness and thickening is described which is applicable to high resolution gated MRI images, and which utilizes much of the resolution present in the original image. Preliminary results indicate this method may offer some advantages over existing methods because of its ability to deal with small regions of high curvature. The method is applicable to short axis, transaxial, or long axis images, and produces an easy to interpret graphical display of myocardial thickness or thickening.

No abstract