CT Angiography Clot Burden Score and Collateral Score: Correlation with Clinical and Radiologic Outcomes in Acute Middle Cerebral Artery Infarct

Abstract

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Clot extent, location, and collateral integrity are important determinants of outcome in acute stroke. We hypothesized that a novel clot burden score (CBS) and collateral score (CS) are important determinants of clinical and radiologic outcomes and serve as useful additional stroke outcome predictors.

MATERIALS AND METHODS: One hundred twenty-one patients with anterior circulation infarct presenting within 3 hours of stroke onset were reviewed. The Spearman correlation was performed to assess the correlation between CBS and CS and clinical and radiologic outcome measures. Patients were dichotomized by using a 90-day modified Rankin scale (mRS) score. Uni- and multivariate logistic regression models were used to assess variables predicting favorable clinical and radiologic outcomes. Receiver operating characteristic and intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) analyses were performed. Diagnostic performance of a CBS threshold of >6 was assessed.

RESULTS: There were 85 patients (mean age, 70 ± 14.5 years). Patients with higher CBS and CS demonstrated smaller pretreatment perfusion defects and final infarct volume and better clinical outcome (all, P < .01). CBS (P = .009) and recanalization (P = .015) independently predicted favorable outcome. A CBS >6 predicted good clinical outcome with an area under the curve of 0.75 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.65–0.84; P = .0001), sensitivity of 73.0 (95% CI, 55.9–86.2), and specificity of 64.6 (95% CI, 49.5–77.8). The recanalization rate with intravenous recombinant tissue plasminogen activator was higher in patients with CBS >6 (P = .04; odds ratio, 3.2; 95% CI, 1.1–9.4). The ICC was 0.97 (95% CI, 0.95–0.98) and 0.87 (95% CI, 0.80–0.91) for CBS and CS, respectively.

CONCLUSIONS: CBS and CS are useful additional markers predicting clinical and radiologic outcomes.