Added assessment of middle cerebral artery and atrial fibrillation to FLAIR vascular hyperintensity-DWI mismatch would improve the outcome prediction of acute infarction in patients with acute internal carotid artery occlusion.

Background And Aims: Whether fluid-attenuated inversion recovery (FLAIR) vascular hyperintensities (FVH)-DWI mismatch could predict the outcome or not remains in debate. The aim of this study was to identify if FVH combined with the other markers improved favorable outcome prediction of acute infarctions in patients with unilateral acute internal carotid artery (ICA) occlusion.

Methods: Consecutive 68 adult acute middle cerebral artery (MCA) territory infarction patients caused by acute ICA occlusion, including favorable (n = 38, mRS ≤ 2) and unfavorable (n = 30, mRS > 2) groups, were enrolled in this retrospective analysis. The diagnostic efficiency of favorable clinical outcome of FVH-DWI mismatch was compared with those of DWI lesions volumetry and the combined marker of FVH-DWI mismatch and other factors.

Results: There were more prominent FVH-DWI mismatch (≥ 3 sections) (84%), less atrial fibrillation (AFib) (13%), and more tandem MCA normal or mild stenosis (63%) in favorable outcome group than those (30%, 40%, and 27%, respectively) in unfavorable group. Univariate and multivariate analyses showed that the prominent FVH-DWI mismatch was the positive predictive factor for favorable outcome (OR = 2.643 and 3.200). Prominent FVH-DWI mismatch, in combination with tandem MCA normal or mild stenosis, and absence of Afib, had better performance (AUC = 0.875) than that of initial DWI lesion volumetry (AUC = 0.854) and any other single factor (AUC = 0.634~0.820) in predicting favorable outcome.

Conclusions: Prominent FVH-DWI mismatch was associated with favorable outcome in acute infarctions in unilateral ICA occlusion patients. Its predictive performance would be improved when combined with the assessment of tandem lesions of MCA and AFib.