Abstract #1449

Similar mechanisms and locations of white matter lesions in elderly healthy controls and asymptomatic carotid artery stenosis patients

Stephan Kaczmarz^1,2, Jens Göttler^1,2,3, Andreas Hock⁴, Claus Zimmer¹, Fahmeed Hyder², and Christine Preibisch^1,5

¹School of Medicine, Department of Neuroradiology, Technical University of Munich, Munich, Germany, ²MRRC, Yale University, New Haven, CT, United States, ³School of Medicine, Department of Radiology, Technical University of Munich, Munich, Germany, ⁴Philips Healthcare, Hamburg, Germany, ⁵School of Medicine, Clinic of Neurology, Technical University of Munich, Munich, Germany

White matter lesions (WML) are detected as hyperintensities on clinically frequently used T₂-weighted FLAIR-images and can manifest as cognitive decline. Though most elderly subjects show WML, the pathogenesis is still unclear. Potential causes are small vessel damages and myelin-sheath deformations. We present data from 30 healthy elderly and 29 carotid stenosis patients measuring WML, individual watershed areas (iWSA), capillary transit-time heterogeneity (CTH) and DTI-based structural parameters. We hypothesize increased lesion load inside iWSAs and capillary dysfunction with structural damages in WML. Our results confirm those hypotheses and furthermore, indicate similar WML formation mechanisms in healthy aging and carotid artery stenosis.

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