Diffusion Kurtosis is Sensitive to Hyperacute Cerebral Ischemia & Increases with Ischemic Progression without Renormalization

Edward S. Hui¹, Fang Du¹, Qiang Shen¹, Shiliang Huang¹, Timothy Q. Duong¹

The outcome of stroke treatment relies in large part on reliable staging of ischemic tissue. With the high sensitivity and specificity of conventional DWI in ischemic tissue delineation, additional clinically relevant information regarding ischemic tissue microstructure should be probed using diffusion kurtosis imaging (DKI). The goal of this study was to explore what additional DKI data could offer in ischemic stroke rat during hyperacute and acute phases. The current study shows that MK is a sensitive index of hyperacute ischemic injury, and increases with time from hyperacute to acute phase, offering a valuate tool to better stage ischemic brain injury.