Diffusion Anisotropy Changes in Comatose Cardiac Arrest Patients

Ona Wu¹, A Gregory Sorensen¹, Thomas Benner¹, Karen L. Furie², David M. Greer²

Imaging data from comatose cardiac arrest patients who received diffusion-tensor MRI were retrospectively analyzed to examine changes in fractional anisotropy (FA) values as a function of clinical outcome. Recovery was based upon either eye opening or the six-month modified Rankin Scale (mRS) score. For patients imaged <3 days, patients without early eye opening had increased white matter FA values compared to patients with eye opening. In terms of 6 month mRS, lower FA values in the putamen and caudate at later time points were associated with a poor 6 month mRS score.