Thresholds for infarction vary between gray matter and white matter in acute ischemic stroke: A CT perfusion study

We aimed to investigate optimal perfusion thresholds defining ischemic core and penumbra for hemispheric-cortical gray matter (GM) and subcortical white matter (WM). A total of 65 sub-6 h ischemic stroke patients were assessed, who underwent acute computed tomography perfusion (CTP) and acute magnetic resonance imaging. CTP maps were generated by both standard singular value deconvolution (sSVD) and SVD with delay and dispersion correction (ddSVD). Analyses were undertaken to calculate sensitivity, specificity, and area under the curve (AUC) for each CTP threshold for core and penumbra in GM and WM. With sSVD, the core was best defined in GM by cerebral blood flow (CBF) < 30% (AUC: 0.73) and in WM by CBF < 20% (AUC: 0.67). With ddSVD, GM core was best defined by CBF < 35% (AUC: 0.75) and in WM by CBF < 25% (AUC: 0.68). A combined GM/WM threshold overestimated core compared to diffusion-weighted imaging, CBF < 25% from sSVD (1.88 ml, P = 0.007) and CBF < 30% from ddSVD (1.27 ml, P = 0.011). The perfusion lesion was best defined by Tmax > 5 s (AUC: 0.80) in GM and Tmax > 7 s (AUC: 0.75) in WM. With sSVD, a delay time (DT) > 3 s from ddSVD was the optimal for both GM (AUC: 0.78) and WM (AUC: 0.75). Using tissue-specific thresholds for GM/WM provides more accurate estimation of acute ischemic core.