SILENT CEREBRAL-LESIONS ON MAGNETIC-RESONANCE-IMAGING IN SUBJECTS WITH CORONARY-ARTERY DISEASE

MRI of subjects with silent intracranial damages may provide more evid ence than CT. Our objectives were to determine the prevalence of silen t MRI lesions in patients with coronary artery disease. The study incl uded 72 consecutive patients with angiographically proven coronary art ery disease and 26 age and sex matched controls with normal coronary a ngiography. AU subjects were evaluated for coronary atherosclerosis (G ensini and coronary angiography scores), the number of silent cerebral lesions detected by MRI, carotid stenosis and the risk factors for st roke. Thirty one of 72 (43.0%) patients had silent brain lesions on MR I while 8 of 26 (30.7%) control subjects showed silent brain infarctio n. The main finding on T-2-weighted MRI was white matter hyperintensit ies (WMH) which were seen in all patients with silent brain lesions. T he mean age of the patients with coronary artery disease and with sile nt cerebral lesions was significantly higher than that of patients wit hout silent brain lesions. The Gensini score, coronary angiography sco re and prevalence of carotid stenosis are significantly higher in pati ents with silent cerebral lesions than that of patients without silent cerebral lesions. There was no significant difference between silent cerebral lesions and the other risk factors for stroke. Silent brain l esions are a common complication in patients with coronary artery dise ase. In patients with coronary artery disease, carotid artery stenosis and age were important risk factors for the development of silent bra in infarction.