Background and Purpose— Acute stroke patients with a large ischemic core may still benefit from mechanical thrombectomy (MT), but the predictors of clinical outcome are not well known after MT. We investigated the clinical and imaging factors associated with good outcome and mortality at 90 days in acute stroke patients with a large baseline ischemic core treated with MT. Methods— Data from the multicentric prospective ETIS (Endovascular Treatment in Ischemic Stroke) registry of consecutive acute ischemic stroke patients treated with MT from January 1, 2012, to August 31, 2016, were retrospectively analyzed. Baseline large ischemic core was defined as diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI)–Alberta Stroke Program Early CT Score of ≤5. The degree of disability was assessed by the modified Rankin Scale at 90 days. Outcomes included good outcome (modified Rankin Scale score of ≤2), and mortality (modified Rankin Scale score of 6). Results— Among 216 patients with DWI-Alberta Stroke Program Early CT Score of ≤5 (median DWI volume 77 mL, interquartile range 52–120 mL) treated with MT, good outcome was achieved in 55 (25.4%) patients and 75 (34.7%) died at 90 days. Hemorrhagic transformation was detected in 40 (18.5%) patients within 24 hours post-MT. Older age (adjusted odds ratio [OR] for every 10 years, 0.62; 95% CI, 0.48–0.80; P <0.001) and increased DWI lesional volume (adjusted OR, 0.98; 95% CI, 0.97–0.99; P <0.001) were associated with a lower chance of achieving a good outcome, while successful recanalization (modified Thrombolysis in Cerebral Infarction [mTICI] grades of ≤2b) predicted good outcome (adjusted OR, 4.56; 95% CI, 1.79–11.62; P =0.001). Successful recanalization (OR, 0.46; 95% CI, 0.22–0.97; P =0.042), increased DWI lesional volume (OR, 1.02; 95% CI, 1.01–1.03; P <0.001), age (OR for every 10 years, 1.72; 95% CI, 1.31–2.26; P <0.001), and diabetes mellitus (OR, 3.23; 95% CI, 1.34–7.8; P =0.009) were independent predictors of 90-day mortality. Conclusions— Successful recanalization and baseline DWI lesional volume are the strongest predictors of outcome in stroke patients with a large ischemic core.

Human face perception requires a network of brain regions distributed throughout the occipital and temporal lobes with a right hemisphere advantage. Present theories consider this network as either a processing hierarchy beginning with the inferior occipital gyrus (occipital face area; IOG-faces/OFA) or a multiple-route network with nonhierarchical components. The former predicts that removing IOG-faces/OFA will detrimentally affect downstream stages, whereas the latter does not. We tested this prediction in a human patient (Patient S.P.) requiring removal of the right inferior occipital cortex, including IOG-faces/OFA. We acquired multiple fMRI measurements in Patient S.P. before and after a preplanned surgery and multiple measurements in typical controls, enabling both within-subject/ across-session comparisons (Patient S.P. before resection vs Patient S.P. after resection) and between-subject/across-session comparisons (Patient S.P. vs controls). We found that the spatial topology and selectivity of downstream ipsilateral face-selective regions were stable 1 and 8 month(s) after surgery. Additionally, the reliability of distributed patterns of face selectivity in Patient S.P. before versus after resection was not different from across-session reliability in controls. Nevertheless, postoperatively, representations of visual space were typical in dorsal face-selective regions but atypical in ventral face-selective regions and V1 of the resected hemisphere. Diffusion weighted imaging in Patient S.P. and controls identifies white matter tracts connecting retinotopic areas to downstream face-selective regions, which may contribute to the stable and plastic features of the face network in Patient S.P. after surgery. Together, our results support a multiple-route network of face processing with nonhierarchical components and shed light on stable and plastic features of high-level visual cortex following focal brain damage.

Background: Mitral valve prolapse (MVP) is a frequent disease that can be complicated by mitral regurgitation (MR), heart failure, arterial embolism, rhythm disorders and death. Left ventricular (LV) replacement myocardial fibrosis, a marker of maladaptive remodeling, has been described in patients with MVP, but the implications of this finding remain scarcely explored. We aimed at assessing the prevalence, pathophysiological and prognostic significance of LV replacement myocardial fibrosis through late gadolinium enhancement (LGE) by cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) in patients with MVP. Methods: Four hundred patients (53±15 years, 55% male) with MVP (trace to severe MR by echocardiography) from 2 centers, who underwent a comprehensive echocardiography and LGE CMR, were included. Correlates of replacement myocardial fibrosis (LGE+), influence of MR degree, and ventricular arrhythmia were assessed. The primary outcome was a composite of cardiovascular events (cardiac death, heart failure, new-onset atrial fibrillation, arterial embolism, and life-threatening ventricular arrhythmia). Results: Replacement myocardial fibrosis (LGE+) was observed in 110 patients (28%; 91 myocardial wall including 71 basal inferolateral wall, 29 papillary muscle). LGE+ prevalence was 13% in trace-mild MR, 28% in moderate and 37% in severe MR, and was associated with specific features of mitral valve apparatus, more dilated LV and more frequent ventricular arrhythmias (45 vs 26%, P<0.0001). In trace-mild MR, despite the absence of significant volume overload, abnormal LV dilatation was observed in 16% of patients and ventricular arrhythmia in 25%. Correlates of LGE+ in multivariable analysis were LV mass (OR 1.01, 95% CI [1.002-1.017], P=0.009) and moderate-severe MR (OR: 2.28, 95% CI [1.21-4.31], P=0.011). LGE+ was associated with worse 4-year cardiovascular event-free survival (49.6±11.7 in LGE+ vs 73.3±6.5% in LGE-, P<0.0001). In a stepwise multivariable Cox model, MR volume and LGE+ (HR: 2.6 [1.4-4.9], P=0.002) were associated with poor outcome. Conclusions: LV replacement myocardial fibrosis is frequent in patients with MVP, is associated with mitral valve apparatus alteration, more dilated LV, MR grade, ventricular arrhythmia, and is independently associated with cardiovascular events. These findings suggest a MVP-related myocardial disease. Finally, CMR provides additional information to echocardiography in MVP.

Introduction: Endovascular therapy has been shown to be an effective and safe treatment for tandem occlusion. The endovascular therapeutic strategies for tandem occlusions strokes have not been adequately evaluated and the best approach is still controversial. The TITAN (Thrombectomy in TANdem occlusions) registry was a result of a collaborative effort to identify the best therapeutic approach for acute ischemic stroke due to tandem lesion. In this review, we aim to summarize the main findings of the TITAN study and discuss the challenges of treatment for tandem occlusion in the era of endovascular thrombectomy.Methods: A review of the data from the multicenter international observational and non-randomized TITAN registry was performed. The TITAN registry included acute ischemic stroke patients with tandem lesions (proximal intracranial occlusion and cervical carotid artery occlusion or stenosis>90%) who were treated with thrombectomy with or without carotid artery stenting.Results: Prior intravenous thrombolysis and emergent cervical carotid stenting were associated with higher reperfusion (mTICI 2b-3 and mTICI 3) rates at the end of the intervention. Poor outcome did not occur more frequently after stenting than after conservative treatment of the cervical carotid lesion. Emergent carotid stenting with antithrombotic agents and intracranial thrombectomy yielded higher reperfusion rate and good outcome (90 day mRS 0–2) compared to other strategies (carotid artery stenting and thrombectomy without antithrombotic, angioplasty and thrombectomy, or thrombectomy alone). Pretreatment intravenous thrombolysis was not associated with increased risk of hemorrhagic complications. Likewise, periprocedural unfractionated heparin did not modify the efficacy and safety results. Etiology of carotid artery lesion (atherosclerosis vs. dissection) did not emerge as predictor of outcome or recanalization.Conclusion: Emergent stenting of the cervical carotid lesion with antithrombotic agents in conjunction to thrombectomy appears to be the best treatment strategy for acute ischemic strokes with tandem lesions. These findings will be further investigated in the ongoing randomized controlled TITAN trial.

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Purpose:The assessment of gliomas by 18 F-FDOPA PET imaging in adjunct to MRI showed high performance by combining static and dynamic features to non-invasively predict the isocitrate dehydrogenase (IDH) mutations and the 1p/19q co-deletion, which the World Health Organization classified as significant parameters in 2016. The current study evaluates whether other 18 F-FDOPA PET radiomics features further improve performance and the contributions of each of these features to performance.Methods: Our study included seventy-two, retrospectively selected, newly diagnosed, glioma patients with 18 F-FDOPA PET dynamic acquisitions. A set of 114 features, including conventional static features and dynamic features as well as other radiomics features were extracted and machine-learning models trained to predict IDH mutations and the 1p/19q co-deletion. Models were based on a machine-learning algorithm built from stable, relevant, and uncorrelated features selected by hierarchical clustering followed by a bootstrapped feature selection process. Models were assessed by comparing area under the curve (AUC) using a nested cross-validation approach.Feature importance was assessed using SHapley Additive exPlanations (SHAP) values. Results:The best models were able to predict IDH mutations (logistic regression with L2 regularization) and the 1p/19q co-deletion (support vector machine with radial basis function kernel) with an AUC of 0.831[0.790;0.873] and 0.724[0.669;0.782] respectively. For the prediction of IDH mutations, dynamic features were the most important features in the model (TTP: 35.5%).In contrast, other radiomics features were the most useful for predicting the 1p/19q co-deletion (up to 14.5% of importance for the small zone low grey level emphasis).4 Conclusions: 18 F-FDOPA PET is an effective tool for the non-invasive prediction of glioma molecular parameters using a full set of amino-acid PET radiomics features. The contribution of each feature set shows the importance of systematically integrating dynamic acquisition for the prediction of the IDH mutations as well as developing the use of radiomics features in routine practice for the prediction the 1p/19q co-deletion.

SummaryThis study was designed retrospectively to assess the value of myocardial T2 to detect or predict ongoing acute heart rejection, in heart transplant patients, with a 1.5-T MRI magnet. One hundred and ninety-six myocardial T2 quantifications were performed on sixty consecutive heart transplant patients during routine follow-up. T2 values were assessed (i) with regard to the results of concomitant biopsies and (ii) with a Cox multivariate model for the prediction of subsequent rejections, defined by a ≥ grade 2 at biopsy or highly suspected in the absence of biopsy (>10% drop in ejection fraction with subsequent reversibility under treatment). T2 values were proposed as main covariate, after logit transformation and adjustment for other confounding parameters such as delay since graft surgery and delay before biopsy. T2 values were strongly linked (i) to the presence of rejection on concomitant biopsy (P < 0.0001) and (ii) to the risk of subsequent rejection on Cox multivariate model (P < 0.001). T2 values above 60 ms were associated with relative risk of rejection higher than 2.0 and rapidly increasing. In conclusion, myocardial T2 yields a high diagnostic and prognostic value for graft rejection in heart transplant patients.

Pretreatment lesional volume is an independent predictor for functional outcome in acute ischemic stroke with proximal intracranial occlusion. The clinical benefit of adding mechanical thrombectomy to thrombolysis decreased with the increase of lesional volume. Ann Neurol 2018;83:178-185.