This poster is published under an
open license. Please read the
disclaimer for further details.
Keywords:
Oedema, Diagnostic procedure, MR-Functional imaging, Neuroradiology brain
Authors:
G. S. Seifeldein, E. A. Hassan, A. S. E.-D. Abd El-Rehim, G. A. Shehata; Assiut/EG
DOI:
10.1594/ecr2016/C-0864
Aims and objectives
HCV-positive individuals frequently exhibit brain dysfunction represented by neuropsychiatric and cognitive impairments,
which can be independent of the severity of liver disease,
hepatic encephalopathy,
viral load,
genotype,
and comorbid drug abuse [1,2].
Neuroimaging studies suggest that HCV-positive individuals show altered structure and function of several neuronal systems,
including the frontal neocortex,
basal ganglia,
and connecting white matter tracts [3,4].
Diffusion-Weighted MRI (DW-MRI) is a commonly available sequence often used in assessing neurovascular disease which assesses changes in the motion of water molecules by defining the chemical interaction between water and cellular barriers [5].
Lodi et al.,2004 [6] were the first who studied patients with postnecrotic cirrhosis and hepatic encephalopathy using diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI).
Few studies discussed diffusivity changes in patients with HCV,
however,
with HIV co-infection [7].
To our knowledge,
limited data on Diffusion MRI have been published for chronic hepatitis C (CHC) and liver cirrhosis in our locality.
Therefore; our aims were to study brain water changes in HCV patients with chronic liver disease (CLD) who had normal appearing brain on plain MRI using DWI and to assess whether these changes could be associated with CHC neuropsychiatric and cognitive challenges and increasing severity of hepatic encephalopathy.