The usefulness of DTI for estimating the state of cerebellar peduncles in cerebral infarct.

Elucidation of the state of cerebellar peduncles (CPs) is difficult because CPs are not completely isolated from adjacent structures and long structures. We attempted to investigate the usefulness of diffusion tensor tractography (DTT) in patients with CP lesions resulting from cerebral infarct. We recruited 6 patients with CP infarct and 6 age-and sex-matched control subjects. Diffusion tensor images (DTIs) were acquired using a sensitivity-encoding head coil at 1.5 T. Three cerebellar peduncles, namely, the superior cerebellar peduncle (SCP), the middle cerebellar peduncle (MCP), and the inferior cerebellar peduncle (ICP) were evaluated using DTI-Studio software. We were able to determine the state of the CP, which could not be detected by conventional brain MRI, according to the following aspect: 1) the presence of a CP lesion resulted from an infarct, 2) the completeness of a CP lesion, and 3) in case of incomplete injury to the CP, the location where integrity was preserved. Therefore, we believe that DTT can give us useful informations on the state of CPs which can not get from conventional brain MRI in patients with cerebral infarct.