- Does Phase-Contrast Imaging through the Cerebral Aqueduct Predict the Outcome of Lumbar CSF Drainage or Shunt Surgery in Patients with Suspected Adult Hydrocephalus?
In this retrospective study, the phase-contrast MR imaging of 185 patients with suspected chronic adult hydrocephalus was evaluated using the CSF Flow software package. Decision-making for shunt placement was performed in this cohort on the basis of clinical assessment alone without the availability of quantitative phase-contrast MRI results. The authors evaluated the response to lumbar puncture or lumbar drainage and shunt surgery using quantitative tests such as the Tinetti Test, the Timed Up and Go, and the Mini-Mental State Examination and qualitative measures of gait, urinary, and cognitive symptom improvement before and after lumbar puncture/lumbar drainage and shunt surgery. This study suggests that the results of phase-contrast MR imaging through the cerebral aqueduct alone should not be used to select patients for diagnostic or therapeutic CSF diversion.
- Peeking into the Black Box of Coregistration in Clinical fMRI: Which Registration Methods Are Used and How Well Do They Perform?
This retrospective study of presurgical fMRI for brain tumors compares nonregistered images and 5 registration cost functions: Hellinger, mutual information, normalized mutual information, correlation ratio, and local Pearson correlation. To adjudicate the accuracy of coregistration, the authors edge-enhanced echo-planar maps and rated them for alignment with structural anatomy. The local Pearson correlation is a special-purpose cost function specifically designed for T2*–T1 coregistration and should be more widely incorporated into software tools as a better method for coregistration in clinical fMRI.
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