Ning Ning1,
Xianjun Li1, 2, Jie Gao3, Yumiao Zhang1,
Jianghong Han1, Xue Luo1, Gang Niu1, Youmin
Guo1, Ed X. Wu4, Jian Yang1
1Department
of radiology, the first affiliated hospital of medical college, Xi'an
Jiaotong University, Xi'an, Shaanxi, China; 2Department of
Biomedical Engineering, School of Life Science and Technology, , Xi' an
Jiaotong University, Xi'an, Shaanxi, China; 3Department of
radiology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Medical College, Xian Jiaotong
University, Xi'an, Shaanxi, China; 4Laboratory of Biomedical
Imaging and Signal Processing, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR,
China
This study aims to determine the differences of deep medullary venous between hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy (HIE) and normal neonates by a quantitative method. 7 normal and 20 HIE neonates were examined by using an ESWAN (enhanced T2* weighted angiography) sequence. In the minimal intensity projection (mIP) map, 3 regions of interest (ROIs) were defined, including deep medullary veins in bilateral brain regions of centrum semiovale, deep white matters of frontal lobe and temporal-occipital junction. Vein-ROI ratio (VRR=vein area/ROI area) was calculated in these ROIs respectively. Results showed increased VRR values in deep medullary veins in HIE group versus normal group (p<0.001), which indicated that VRR may be a marker for the degree of hypoxia in neonates with HIE. This quantitative method is potentially valuable at depicting venous prominence for predicting degree of injury after HIE.