The role of white matter tractography imaging in predicting the outcome of stroke patients.

Abstract

Predicting the patient prognosis following stroke is crucial in drawing the future plan of management and rehabilitation by the therapist. Researchers tried to predict the functional motor outcome using different measurements including but not limited to infarct site, volume of stroke, age, demographics, comorbidities, certain biomarkers and initial presentation. The CST is the main tract involved in voluntary motor movements; therefore, the motor recovery is mainly dependent on the integrity of fibers in this tract. Diffusion-tensor magnetic resonance imaging (DTI) and fiber tractography (FT) are new methods that can demonstrate the orientation and integrity of white matter fibers in vivo and is considered a powerful method for characterizing changes in tissue microstructure associated with different brain disorders. Therefore, it could give us an idea about the possibility of future recovery of the patient. Forty patients presented with acute and subacute ischemic stroke and 10 control subjects were included in this study. Conventional MRI and DTI were acquired in all of the studied population and Corticospinal tracts (CST) and FA (ROI) were identified.