Is Cerebral Edema Effective in Idiopathic Intracranial Hypertension Pathogenesis?: Diffusion Weighted MR Imaging Study

Abstract

The aim of this study is to research whether cerebral edema is effective in the pathogenesis of patients with idiopathic intracranial hypertension (IIH) by using diffusion weighted imaging (DWI) and apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) measurements. Thirty-six IHH patients who received DWI and 36 age- and sex-matched healthy control group were assessed retrospectively. ADCmin, ADCmean, and ADCmax values were measured from different regions of the brain for both IHH patients and the control group. The Student’s t-test was used to compare the ADCmin, ADCmax, ADCmean values acquired from distinct parts of the brain parenchyma of IIH patients with the values of control group. No significant difference was found between ADCmin, ADCmax, and ADCmean values of IIH and control group in bilateral frontal, parietal temporal and occipital lobe cortical and subcortical white matter, caudate nucleus head, putamen, thalamus, corpus callosum splenium and genu (P>0.05). This study showed that cerebral edema cannot be a significant mechanism in the pathogenesis of IIH.