Detection of diffusion-weighted MRI abnormalities in patients with transient ischemic attack: correlation with clinical characteristics.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Although diffusion-weighted MRI (DWI) has demonstrated clear superiority over other conventional imaging modalities in the detection of hyperacute cerebral ischemia, its value in the evaluation of patients with transient symptoms has received only limited attention. We assessed the utility of DWI in patients with transient ischemic attack (TIA) to further evaluate the usefulness of this technique in these individuals. METHODS A retrospective analysis was performed on all patients entered in the Stanford Stroke Center database during 1997-2001 who were clinically diagnosed with a TIA and who had also undergone a DWI scan or=1 hour, 16 times more likely to have had motor deficits, and 25 times more likely to have had aphasia than patients with negative DWI scans. The combination of all 3 symptoms was 100% specific for an abnormality on DWI. In 7 of 16 cases (44%), a DWI abnormality was present on both DWI and conventional imaging (T2-weighted imaging or fluid-attenuated inversion recovery [FLAIR]). In all of these cases the DWI clarified the extent or acuity of the lesion (n=7) or identified additional lesions not detected by conventional imaging (n=9). CONCLUSIONS In TIA patients, symptom duration >or=1 hour, motor deficits, and aphasia were each independently correlated with detecting an abnormality with DWI. DWI was also helpful in differentiating between chronic versus acute lesions. These data may be of value in identifying those TIA patients for whom MRI evaluation with DWI is of greatest clinical utility.