Introduction: In some minor acute ischemic stroke (mAIS) patients (admit NIHSS1.8 x 10 -5 cm 2 /s) to measure change in CSF at 30-days. FLAIR lesion positivity was determined independently at 30-days. Results: This study included 23 mAIS patients (median age 66 years 59-69, 35% female, with admit NIHSS 2 0-4 and median 5-day GM volume 1.45mL 0.33-3.48). Sixty-one percent of patients had FLAIR positive lesions at 30-days. These 14 patients had larger GM involvement within the FLAIR lesions at 5-days, 1.54mL vs 0.33mL (p=0.017), compared to the 9 patients with lesions that “disappeared” on FLAIR at 30-days. The amount of GM loss was also larger in these 14 patients from 5-days to 30-days, -0.16mL vs 0.00mL in the 9 patients (p=0.21). Fourteen patients (61%) had some amount of GM loss at 30-days, but 4 (29%) had lesions that disappeared on FLAIR at 30-days. There was no change in GM in the contralateral hemisphere regardless of whether the FLAIR lesion was positive at 30-days. Across all 23 patients, there was a significant increase in CSF volume from 5-days to 30-days (0.15mL, p<0.001) in the area defined by the 5-day FLAIR positive lesion. Conclusion: Focal GM atrophy was shown at 30-days in the majority of mAIS patients without a significant reduction in homologous GM. Some patients with disappearing FLAIR lesions still demonstrated GM loss at 30-days. The increase in CSF reflected expansion of sulcal spaces. Future work will investigate long-term changes in gray and white matter.
Sowers et al. (Thu,) studied this question.