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The presence of cerebral microbleeds (CMBs) on gradient-echo MRI (GRE) is common in patients with small-vessel diseases of the brain, such as cerebral amyloid angiopathy (CAA). In patients with CAA, microbleeds may signify increased risk for lobar intracerebral hemorrhage. However, their clinical significance in the general elderly population is less defined.
These authors examined risk factors for and prevalence of CMBs in the population-based Rotterdam Scan Study (1062 participants; mean age, 69.6 years). They customized GRE to increase sensitivity for CMB detection. They also assessed vascular risk factors, APOE genotype, and MRI markers of small-vessel disease other than CMBs (lacunes and white-matter lesions).
The prevalence of CMBs incr…