Purpose: To evaluate the role of standard and ultrafast MR brain imaging and compare the information with CT.
Material and methods: This was a prospective study of 114 patients with acute neurological symptoms and signs. CT brain examinations consisted of axial non-enhanced images. MR imaging consisted of standard spin-echo/fast spin-echo sequences and a series of rapid techniques including echoplanar and single shot fast spin-echo sequences.
Results: Using standard MR methods, 41% of the patients had all five sequences of good technical quality, while using ultrafast methods 81% of the patients had good technical quality examinations in all five sequences. In 3% of the cases, ischaemic stroke was incorrectly reported on CT. In 24% of the cases, MR gave extra diagnostic information not reported on CT and in a further 8%, one neuroradiologist reported the abnormality in agreement with the MR, whilst the other neuroradiologist reported the CT as normal. In 2 cases, subarachnoid haemorrhage was missed on MR. Subarachnoid haemorrhage was not shown on the ultrafast sequences.
Conclusion: MR can be used to image acute neurological admissions with a high success rate, particularly using ultrafast methods. In many cases, MR provided extra information of direct clinical relevance not shown on CT.