Reinoud P. H. Bokkers1,
Steven Warach2, Daymara Hernandez2, Matthias J. van
Osch3, Jeroen Hendrikse1, Raymond V. Mirasol2,
Jos G. Merino2, Lawrence L. Latour2
1Department of
Radiology, UMCU, Utrecht, Netherlands; 2Section of Stroke
Diagnostics & Therapeutics, NINDS, NIH, Bethesda, MD, USA; 3C.
J. Gorter Institute for High Field MRI, LUMC,
The aim of our study was to test the feasibility of using arterial spin labeling (ASL) perfusion MRI for evaluating hyperacute stroke in patients where limited time is available and to evaluate the ability of ASL for detecting perfusion deficits and perfusion-diffusion mismatch as compared with dynamic susceptibility contrast (DSC) perfusion imaging. Our study shows that ASL can depict large perfusion deficits and perfusion/diffusion mismatches in correspondence with DSC and that a fast 2 minute ASL perfusion scan may be adequate for screening patients with contraindications to gadolinium-based contrast agents.