Perfusion and Collaterals Imaging With C-arm CT

In neurovascular disease, and stroke in particular, physicians often want to be able to detect regions of ischemia in the brain and the recanalization status of cerebral blood vessels. Perfusion and collateral vessel imaging is a possible approach for doing this. These imaging techniques are able to differentiate ischemic core in parenchymal tissue in the brain versus salvageable penumbra tissue around the core. Also the recanalization status of blood vessels can be evaluated using this technique. This study wishes to investigate if the x-ray C-arm in the treatment room can generate perfusion and collateral images of clinical value during treatment, using a technique known as C-arm computed tomography. If this study shows that to be the case, then it might be feasible in the future to bypass CT or MR perfusion/collateral imaging for some patients when they arrive at the hospital, since all this imaging can be done in the treatment room. In the future, this imaging approach may have the potential to simplify and improve patient workflows and reduce the time between hospital arrival and treatment for these patients and could also potentially compensate for missing imaging information.