Application of Texture Analysis to Study Small Vessel Disease and Blood-Brains Barrier Integrity

作者：Hernandez Maria del C Valdes; Gonazlez Castro Victor; Chappell Francesca M; Sakka Eleni; Makin Stephen; Armitage Paul A; Nailon William H; Wardlaw Joanna M

来源：Frontiers in Neurology, 2017, 8: 327.

DOI：10.3389/fneur.2017.00327

• texture analysis
• cerebral small vessel disease
• blood-brain barrier
• hypertension
• age
• stroke
• leukoaraiosis
• perivascular spaces

Objectives: We evaluate the alternative use of texture analysis for evaluating the role of blood-brain barrier (BBB) in small vessel disease (SVD).
Methods: We used brain magnetic resonance imaging from 204 stroke patients, acquired before and 20 min after intravenous gadolinium administration. We segmented tissues, white matter hyperintensities (WMH) and applied validated visual scores. We measured textural features in all tissues pre-and post-contrast and used ANCOVA to evaluate the effect of SVD indicators on the pre-/post-contrast change, Kruskal-Wallis for significance between patient groups and linear mixed models for pre-/post-contrast variations in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) with Fazekas scores.
Results: Textural "homogeneity" increase in normal tissues with higher presence of SVD indicators was consistently more overt than in abnormal tissues. Textural "homogeneity" increased with age, basal ganglia perivascular spaces scores (p < 0.01) and SVD scores (p < 0.05) and was significantly higher in hypertensive patients (p < 0.002) and lacunar stroke (p = 0.04). Hypertension (74% patients), WMH load (median = 1.5 +/- 1.6% of intracranial volume), and age (mean = 65.6 years, SD = 11.3) predicted the pre/post-contrast change in normal white matter, WMH, and index stroke lesion. CSF signal increased with increasing SVD post-contrast.
Conclusion: A consistent general pattern of increasing textural "homogeneity" with increasing SVD and post-contrast change in CSF with increasing WMH suggest that texture analysis may be useful for the study of BBB integrity.

• 出版日期2017-7-19