In patients with recurrent glioma treated with bevacizumab, the presence of homogenous dark signal (FDR) on ADC maps at 8 weeks follow-up MRI correlated with a longer survival. Thus, use of this qualitative diffusion signature in adjunct to contrast enhanced MRI may have the widest potential impact on routine clinical care for patients with recurrent high-grade gliomas. However, prospective studies analysing its predictive value are warranted.
Purpose: Routine head and neck CTAs (CTAhead+neck) performed for dizziness in the Emergency Department (ED) has steadily increased, but its clinical utility is still poorly elucidated. Our purpose was to assess the radiologic outcomes of CTAhead+neck in ED dizziness patients. Methods: ED dizziness patients with CTAhead+neck from January 2010 through November 2019 were retrospectively identified and further stratified into central vertigo (CV), peripheral vertigo (PV), and non-specific dizziness (NSD) groups by final clinical diagnoses. Findings on CTAhead+neck (vessel stenosis >50%, occlusion, dissection, and infarct), and infarct on subsequent MRI if performed, were assessed. Differences in imaging findings were analyzed using chi-square or Fisher’s exact tests. Results: Of 867 dizziness patients, 88 were diagnosed with CV, 383 with PV, and 396 with NSD. On CTAhead+neck, 11.4% of all patients had posterior CTA findings, including posterior occlusions (4.2%), dissections (1.2%), and infarcts (2.3%). CV patients had more posterior circulation findings (31.8%) versus PV (9.9%) and NSD (8.3%) patients (both p < 0.01). 21.6% of CV patients had acute infarcts on CT versus none for PV and 0.03% for NSD patients (both p < 0.01). On MRI, 46.6% of CV patients had acute posterior circulation infarcts versus none for PV and 0.3% for NSD patients ( p < 0.01). Conclusion: Diagnostic yield for CTAhead+neck for dizziness patients is low except in central vertigo patients which constitute only 1/10th of CTAs performed. Our single institution results support that CTAhead+neck is likely low-yield in patients with high clinical suspicion for PV or NSD and further studies are needed to test this hypothesis.
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