Prediction of early postoperative cerebral hemorrhage in infective endocarditis patients using magnetic resonance imaging.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the relationship between preoperative magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) findings and the occurrence of postoperative intracranial hemorrhage (ICH) in infective endocarditis (IE) patients.

METHODS: Between 2002 and 2012, 30 IE patients required surgical intervention. Four patients developed and 26 patients did not develop postoperative ICH. All patients underwent preoperative brain MRI. The presence of acute brain infarction was detected by diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI), and cerebral microbleeds were detected by T2*-weighted imaging.

RESULTS: Two ICH(+) patients died of stroke. Preoperative patient characteristics and operative results were not significantly different. Regarding MRI findings, the presence of cerebral microbleeds or acute brain infarction alone was not significantly different between the two groups (100 vs. 29.6 %, p = 0.07; 75.0 vs. 38.5 %, p = 0.37, respectively). The concurrent presence of cerebral microbleeds and acute brain infarction was significantly correlated with the development of major ICH (75 vs. 14.8 %, p = 0.04). In multiple logistic regression analyses, the concurrent presence of cerebral microbleeds and acute brain infarction on MRI was an independent predictor of major postoperative ICH (p = 0.03, odds ratio 16.5, 95 % confidence interval 1.35-201.3).

CONCLUSION: The combination of T2*-weighted MRI and DWI may be useful to evaluate the risk of IE patients developing major postoperative cerebral bleeding.