How does the protein content of CSF affect for DWI thermometry?: Initial results of phantom and subarachnoid hemorrhage patient study

Diffusion-weight imaging (DWI) has already been incorporated as a regular sequence for patients. If DWI could indicate brain temperature without a complicated procedure, such information may greatly contribute to initial diagnosis. Although DWI based thermometry has a potential to be a non-invasive temperature measurement method for the inside of human brain, the DWI might be influenced by the composition of the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF). The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of protein content in CSF for DWI thermometry on both phantom and patients. We assessed both protein included artificial CSF (ACSF) and subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH) patients as a representative example of brain hemorrhage. The ACSF phantom study showed that less than 10 mg/ml protein content did not affect DWI thermometry and low Fisher scale SAH patients´ DWI thermometry did not be affected by hemorrhage.