Laminar cortical necrosis

Laminar cortical necrosis is the end-stage of cortical ischemia and has been described in many conditions of cellular energy depletion, such as hypoxia and hypoglycemia. It may also be associated with a variety of other diseases affecting the nervous system (Valanne et al. 1996). Laminar cortical necrosis has been studied with nuclear medicine methods (Hawes and Mishkin 1972), but has recently been more extensively studied with CT and MRI. 

In a study of six patients with laminar cortical necrosis, MRI showed hyperintense lesions in the cerebral cortex on Tl-weighted and T2-weighted images (el Quessar et al. 1999). In four patients,... 

Diffusion-weighted MRI, due to its extreme sensitivity to changes in tissue water and, therefore, to ischemia (Le Bihan et al. 1986 Moseley et al. 1990 van Gelderen et al. 1994 Warach et al. 1992,1995 Sorensen et al. 1996 Lovblad et al. 1998), makes it possible to demonstrate ischemic changes due to acute hypoperfusion (see Chap. 7). These findings correspond to those found in the early stages of laminar cortical necrosis (Figs. 16.3, 16.6, 16.7). 

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Valanne L, Paetau A, Suomalainen A, Ketonen L, Pihko H (1996) Laminar cortical necrosis in MELAS syndrome MR and neuropathological observations. Neuropediatrics 27 154-160... 

Bargallo N, Burrel M, Berenguer J, Cofan F, Bunesch L, Mercader JM (2000) Cortical laminar necrosis caused by immunosuppressive therapy and chemotherapy. Am J Neuroradiol 21 479-484... 

El Quessar A, Meunier JC, Delmaire C, Soto Ares G, Pruvo JP (1999) MRI imaging in cortical laminar necrosis. J Radiol... 

Komiyama M, Nishikawa M, Yasui T (1997) Cortical laminar necrosis in brain infarcts chronological changes on MRI. Neuroradiology 39 474-479... 

Komiyama M, Nakajima H, Nishikawa M, Yasui T (1998) Serial MR observation of cortical laminar necrosis caused by brain infarction. Neuroradiology 40 771-777... 

Sawada H, Udaka F, Seriu N, Shindou K, Kameyama M, Tsujimura M (1990) MRI demonstration of cortical laminar necrosis and delayed white matter injury in anoxic encephalopathy. Neuroradiology 32 319-321 Schlaug G, Siewert B, Benfield A, Edelman RR,Warach S (1997) Time course of the apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) abnormality in human stroke. Neurology 49 113-119 Singhal AB, Topcuoglu MA, Koroshetz WJ (2002) Diffusion MRI in three types of anoxic encephalopathy. I Neurol Sci 15 37-40... 

Takahashi S, Higano S, Ishii K, Matsumoto K, Sakamoto K, Iwasaki Y et al (1993) Hypoxic brain damage cortical laminar necrosis and delayed changes in white matter at sequential MR imaging. Radiology 189 449-456... 

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