Ironing out differences in attenuation and blooming artifact in acute stroke thrombi

This study aims to improve our understanding of acute ischemic stroke clot imaging by integrating CT attenuation information with MRI susceptibility signal of thrombi. For this proof-of-principle experimental study, fifty-seven clot analogs were produced using ovine venous blood with a broad histological spectrum. Each clot analog was analyzed to determine its RBC content and chemical composition, including water, Fe III, sodium, pH, and pO2. Non-contrast CT and a susceptibility-weighted MRI sequence were used for imaging. The study found that RBC content correlated more accurately than iron content with clot attenuation on CT. There was a strong correlation between Fe III content and RBC percentage in clots. Specifically, changes in RBC content accounted for 64% of the variance in Fe III content (R2 = 0.640; p