Importance of Diffusion-Weighted MRI Positivity in Patients with Transient Neurologic Events

The presence of diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) positivity in patients with transient neurologic events in relation to onset-to-imaging time is still not clear. Some studies have shown that some clinical characteristics such as older age, male sex, dyslipidemia, previous myocardial infarction, and atrial fibrillation are associated with ischemic lesions detected with DWI positivity. It is also common to see false-negative imaging findings when urgent imaging is performed close to onset of symptoms (within 2 hours). The objective of this study was to examine whether the presence of focal symptoms has higher DWI-positive imaging at later onset-to-imaging times.

The study included 2411 patients (1345 males; median age, 68 years). DWI positivit…