Intérêt pronostique de l'IRM cérébrale chez le traumatisé crânien

Due to undeniable progress during the last years, brain imaging including magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) became a major tool for neurological diagnosis in acute brain injury. Both conventional MRI sequences and more recently developed sequences including magnetic resonance spectroscopy and diffusion tensor imaging may offer important prognostic information. MRI is a validated prognostic tool in traumatic brain injury. Consistently, bilateral and symmetric brainstem or diencephalic injuries with conventional MRI, decreased N-acetyl-aspartate/creatine ratio in magnetic resonance spectroscopy as well as decreased fractional anistropy in diffusion tensor imaging are invariably associated to unfavorable neurological outcome at one year.