Prevalence and clinical relevance of diffusion-weighted imaging lesions: The Rotterdam study.

Objective: To examine the association of diffusion-weighted image (DWI) lesions with markers of cerebrovascular disease, neurodegeneration, and cognitive functioning and to further explore the evolution of these DWI lesions and their link to risk of dementia, stroke, or TIA in the Rotterdam Study.

Methods: Two thousand one hundred seventy-six participants with baseline MRI scans (assessed between January 2009 and December 2013) and data on incident clinical outcomes (until January 2016) were included. DWIs were inspected for presence of acute or subacute lesions.