Clinical value of susceptibility weighted imaging in detecting cranial vascular diseases

Objective To investigate the clinical value of susceptibility weighted imaging(SWI) in detecting cranial vascular diseases.Methods Retrospective analysis 45 patients of pathologically confirmed brain diseases underwent T1WI,T2WI,T2-FLAIR and SWI at 3.0T MRI.All the SWI images were compared with other image appearances.Analysis of various disease manifestations on SWI images,to evaluate SWI in the diagnosis of brain diseases in quality.Results Twelve(12/45) patients with venous malformation hemorrhage,the sensitivity of SWI was 100% as well as FLAIR and T2WI,the sensitivity of T1WI was 83%(10/12),there was no statistically significant differ ence of detection rate between SWI and other sequences.Nineteen(19/45) patients of cavernous hemangioma,the sensitivi-ty of SWI was 100% while the sensitivity of T1WI was 42%(8/19) which indicated statistically difference.Three pa-tients with venous sinus thrombosis were detected,also,draining vein around the lesion appeared much more clear on SWI. Six patients of acute cerebral infarction,bleeding lesion were detected in there cases on SWI while only one could found on conventional MRI.Draining veins in and around the lesion could be better displayed on SWI in there cases of five patients with intracranial tumors.Conclusion SWI is a sensitive technique for detecting blood products and vascular structures and can provide more information of lesion structure than the conventional sequence,which contributes to cranial disease diagnosing.