CT and MRI diagnosis of cerebral cavernous anginoma

Objective To explore CT and MRI features and their diagnostic value of cerebral cavernous angioma.Methods Twelve patients with pathologically proved cerebral cavernous angioma were collected.And their imaging findings,including plain CT(n=8),enhanced CT(n=4),plain MRI(n=12) and Gd-DTPA enhanced MRI(n=5),were retrospectively analyzed.Results Fourteen lesions were detected in 12 cases on plain CT scans and plain MRI.Most cerebral cavernous angioma was single (10/12,83%) and could occurre at any site in the brain,which presented analognous round with slightly high density or high density on plain CT.Most of them weren't average,and often companied with calcification and hemorrhage.On plain MRI,most lesions displayed iso-intense or slightly high-intense signal on T1WI,while all lesions displayed mixed signal on T2WI.11 lesions displayed ring-like low-signal,neither perifocal edema nor space-occupying effect was present in most cases.After administration of contrast media,the lesions had no enhancement or slight enhancement.Conclusions Both CT and MRI are of great value in the diagnosis of the disease,and MRI is superior to CT in displaying the lesions.MRI is the best method for diagnosis of cerebral cavernous angioma.