Application of susceptibility weighted imaging in the diagnosis of cerebral microbleeding for cerebral lacunar infarction

Objective To evaluate the application of susceptibility-weighted imaging (SWI) in detecting scanning (CMB) lesions in lacunar cerebral infarction patients. Methods Patients in the lacunar cerebral infarction group and the normal control group (n=60) underwent MRI scanning, that is GRE-T2*WI, SWI, FSE sequences (T1WI, T2WI and T2FLAIR) routine axis examination. Results According to SWI sequence, the positive rate of CMB was the highest, followed by GRE-T2*WI, and other conventional sequence (T1WI, T2WI, and T2FLAIR) found that the positive rate of CMB was low. Furthermore, 84 cases of CMB (84 lesions) were detected by SWI sequence, 19 cases of CMB (40 lesions) was detected by GRE-T2*WI sequence, and 2 cases of CMB (4 lesions) and 6 cases of CMB (11 lesions) were detected by T1WI and T2WI respectively. The positive number of CMBs detected by SWI sequence was remarkably higher than those by T1WI, T2WI, T2FLAIR and GRE-T2*WI (P<0.01). There were 26 cases of microbleeding lesions (43.33%) in the lacunar infarction group and 8 cases of microbleeding lesions (13.33%) in the normal control group, which was statistically different (P<0.05). The incidence of CMB in the basal ganglia and thalami (BGT), followed by the cortico-subcortical region (CSC) and infratentorial region (IT). The lacunar cerebral infarction group presented light, medium and severe lesions of cerebral microbleeding, while the normal control group showed slight lesions. Statistical difference was found in the severity of light, medium and severe patients in the lacunar cerebral infarction group (P<0.05). Conclusions SWI sequence is an accurate and effective method for the analysis and diagnosis of cerebral microbleeding.