Assessment of infratentorial Acute Ischemic Stroke with Diffusion-weighted-imaging

Synopsis: Systematic clinico-topographical correlation studies of vertebrobasilar stroke are rare due to limitations of visualization of infratentorial structures and small strokes. We analysed DWI data of 275 patients with acute infratentorial infarction from a stroke center serving a 1 million population. Even minute lesions and multifocal pathology are regularly detected with DWI, allowing exact identification of infratentorial stroke with identification of reoccuring stroke-subtypes, which in turn frequently provides important clues as to the understanding of the clinical deficit and underlying etiology/stroke mechanism. This study provides a data bank on the frequency of infratentorial stroke subtypes and related clinical phenomena.