XENON COMPUTED TOMOGRAPHY CEREBRAL BLOOD-FLOW AND ITS USE IN CLINICALMANAGEMENT/

The main advantage of stable xenon-CT cerebral blood flow (CBF) is tha t it noninvasively provides rapid access to high-resolution, quantitat ive local CBF information coupled to CT anatomy. Measurements of cereb rovascular reserve can be made by using xenon-CT CBF methods and this knowledge has proven useful for assessing the tolerance to carotid sac rifice-the cause for neurologic deficits in patients with chronic occl usive vascular disease-and the presence of vasospasm after aneurysm ru pture. The recent major advances in xenon-CT CBF methods include the a bility to measure blood now in more levels of the brain, and the use o f a lower concentration of xenon while maintaining the same signal-to- noise ratio. The previous theoretic and practical concerns over the te chnology have been resolved. This technology is becoming more widely u sed throughout the world as rapid access to quantitative CBF is needed for guiding patient management.