MRI.. Bilateral cerebral white matter abnormal mri signal. MRA.. it shows Bilateral posterior communicating artery hypoplastic or aplastic change. can someone tell me what all this mean?

Answer 1

A rough translation in laymans terms would be-

MRI - Bilateral cerebral white matter abnormal mri signal

= We did an MRI scan to look at the hydrogen content of the tissue. When we looked deep into the middle of the brain the bits that connect the computers on the surface to each other (white matter) in both halves of the patients brain (bilateral) looked kind of weird (abnormal).

MRA - bilateral posterior communicating artery hypoplastic or aplastic change.

= We did a MRA scan to look at how blood gets around the brain. In the middle of the brain there is a kind of blood vessel round-about (circle of Willis) the bit near the back of the patient (bilateral posterior communicating artery) looks sort of odd (hyperplastic = enlarged, anaplastic = not properly formed = probably smaller than normal).

The MRA result could be read "one lot of blood vessles didn't form properly so the other side has taken over. It is quite common for there to be lots of differences between individuals with this blood vessle so "whatever" is my response. If you scanned me I could be just the same!

The MRI result says its "a bit odd", that could be due to a whole number of things but rules out a few real nastys like brain cancer and brain lesions such as are associated with MS and syphilis as they would occur on one side only to begin with and would be asymetric later on.

Abnormal MRI signals of white matter in both sides of the brain have been seen in people with heat stroke! Without a better idea of how the scans were abnornal, the age of the patient and why the patient was sent for the scan it is impossible to narrow it down.