Abstract
Our aim was to correlate MRI features with clinical outcome in 37 patients with severe head injury. All patients were submitted to neuropsycological evaluation and MRI when the consciousness status was adequate. MRI examinations were performed using a 1.5 tesla unit; in addition to T1, PD and T2-w spin-echo sequences, turbo-FLAIR and FFE sequences were also performed. FFE sequences are particularly sensitive to small hemosiderin amounts which may be missed by conventional SE, while turbo-FLAIR sequences provide the best depiction of the size of gliotic areas.
All the patients were submitted to neuropsycological reevaluation after 3, 6 and 12 months. Correlation between total and regional lesionai load and outcome was performed.
Our results showed that total lesion load at FLAIR and not at FFE was significantly correlated with clinical outcome. Frontal and temporal lobes were more frequently affected. Lesion size in the FLAIR images in the temporal lobe was significantly correlated with the level of consciousness at the first and second evaluations but it did not affect the long term clincal outcome.
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