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Brain SPECT and the Effect of Cerebral Angioplasty in Delayed Ischemia due to Vasospasm

Divisions of Nuclear Medicine and Neuroradiology of the Department of Radiology, Department of Neurological Surgery, Harborview Medical Center, University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle, Washington

Correspondence: For reprints contact: David H. Lewis, MD, Director, Nuclear Medicine, Harborview Medical Center ZA-44, Acting Assistant Professor of Radiology, University of Washington School of Medicine, 325 Ninth Ave., Seattle, Washington 98104.

ABSTRACT

Cerebral vasospasm is a major determinant of outcome after subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH). Brain SPECT with ^99mTc-HMPAO was obtained before and after cerebral angioplasty in 10 patients with delayed ischemia due to vasospasm. Eight patients had clinically evident neurologic improvement after the procedure. Visual interpretation and an internal-reference (cerebellum), manual, semi-quantitative region of interest (ROI) analysis revealed improvement of regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) in 9 out of 10. There were disagreements between the visual and ROI analysis in the two that did not improve clinically. For all 10, the average increase per anterior circulation vessel dilated (n = 17) was 8.8% by comparison of the corticocerebellar ratios. For the eight that improved, the average increase was 10.5%. Brain SPECT is valuable for evaluating delayed cerebral ischemia caused by vasospasm after SAH and is useful to document the changes in rCBF induced by angioplasty. It is possible that SPECT may be useful to detect critical reductions in perfusion before clinical deficits develop, thereby offering the potential to identify candidates for early treatment with angioplasty.

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