CT Brain Perfusion in the Prediction of Final Infarct Volume: A Prospective Study of Different Software Settings for Acute Ischemic Core Calculation

CT perfusion (CTP) is used for the evaluation of brain tissue viability in patients with acute ischemic stroke (AIS). We studied the accuracy of three different syngo.via software (SW) settings for acute ischemic core estimation in predicting the final infarct volume (FIV). The ischemic core was defined as follows: Setting A: an area with cerebral blood flow (CBF) < 30% compared to the contralateral healthy hemisphere. Setting B: CBF < 20% compared to contralateral hemisphere. Setting C: area of cerebral blood volume (CBV) < 1.2 mL/100 mL. We studied 47 AIS patients (aged 68 ± 11.2 years) with large vessel occlusion in the anterior circulation, treated in the early time window (up to 6 h), who underwent technically successful endovascular thrombectomy (EVT). FIV was measured on MRI performed 24 ± 2 h after EVT. In general, all three settings correlated with each other; however, the absolute agreement between acute ischemic core volume on CTP and FIV on MRI was poor; intraclass correlation for all three settings was between 0.64 and 0.69, root mean square error of the individual observations was between 58.9 and 66.0. Our results suggest that using CTP syngo.via SW for prediction of FIV in AIS patients in the early time window is not appropriate.