PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Belani, Puneet
AU  - Kihira, Shingo
AU  - Pacheco, Felipe
AU  - Pawha, Puneet
AU  - Cruciata, Giuseppe
AU  - Nael, Kambiz
TI  - Addition of arterial spin-labelled MR perfusion to conventional brain MRI: clinical experience in a retrospective cohort study
AID  - 10.1136/bmjopen-2020-036785
DP  - 2020 Jun 01
TA  - BMJ Open
PG  - e036785
VI  - 10
IP  - 6
4099  - http://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/10/6/e036785.short
4100  - http://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/10/6/e036785.full
SO  - BMJ Open2020 Jun 01; 10
AB  - Objective The usage of arterial spin labelling (ASL) perfusion has exponentially increased due to improved and faster acquisition time and ease of postprocessing. We aimed to report potential additional findings obtained by adding ASL to routine unenhanced brain MRI for patients being scanned in a hospital setting for various neurological indications.Design Retrospective.Setting Large tertiary hospital.Participants 676 patients.Primary outcome Additional findings from ASL sequence compared with conventional MRI.Results Our patient cohorts consisted of 676 patients with 257 with acute infarcts and 419 without an infarct. Additional findings from ASL were observed in 13.9% (94/676) of patients. In the non-infarct group, additional findings from ASL were observed in 7.4% (31/419) of patients, whereas in patients with an acute infarct, supplemental information was obtained in 24.5% (63/257) of patients.Conclusion The addition of an ASL sequence to routine brain MRI in a hospital setting provides additional findings compared with conventional brain MRI in about 7.4% of patients with additional supplementary information in 24.5% of patients with acute infarct.