TY - JOUR T1 - White Matter Damage in Asymptomatic Patients with Sickle Cell Anemia: Screening with Diffusion Tensor Imaging JF - American Journal of Neuroradiology JO - Am. J. Neuroradiol. DO - 10.3174/ajnr.A3135 AU - B. Sun AU - R.C. Brown AU - L. Hayes AU - T.G. Burns AU - J. Huamani AU - D.J. Bearden AU - R.A. Jones Y1 - 2012/05/17 UR - http://www.ajnr.org/content/early/2012/05/17/ajnr.A3135.abstract N2 - BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Ischemic injury to the brain is a common complication of SCA. To better understand the neurologic impact of SCA, TBSS were applied to DTI data to investigate white matter injuries in pediatric patients with SCA. MATERIALS AND METHODS: TBSS comparisons of a range of anisotropy and diffusion measures were carried out between age- and background-matched population groups: patients with SCA with no visible lesions, patients with SCA with mild gliosis, and normal controls. RESULTS: TBSS analysis revealed that both SCA populations exhibited reduced anisotropy and increased diffusivity compared with normal controls in multiple brain regions, including the corpus callosum and centrum semiovale. Furthermore, the results suggest that the severity of SCA is positively correlated with the white matter changes in the corpus callosum. CONCLUSIONS: The study demonstrates that TBSS is a viable technique in detecting subtle white matter damage in patients with SCA whose conventional anatomic MR imaging scans show no, or minimal, abnormalities and has the potential to evaluate the neurologic impact of the treatment of SCA. Abbreviations EARellipsoidal area ratioFAfractional anisotropyFSLFMRIB Software LibraryLDlongitudinal diffusivityMDmean diffusivityMOmode of the diffusion tensorRDradial diffusivitySCAsickle cell anemiaSCA-MGSCA with mild gliosisSCA-NLradiologically normal SCATBSStract-based spatial statistics ER -