Abstract
We evaluated how diagnostic imaging was undertaken in acute stroke patients. For the survey, we selected the training hospitals (1, 227 hospitals) of the Japan Neurosurgical Society or Japanese Association of Acute Medicine and sent out questionnaires to them. In total, 431 hospitals (35.1%) responded to the survey. The diagnostic imaging procedures that were performed on the acute stroke patients included CT (96%), MRI (77%), SPECT (9%), and carotid sonography (19%). For acute stroke patients, 17 hospitals carried out only MRI, and 39 hospitals performed MRI first, and then CT. The pulse sequences of the MRI for the stroke patients were very variable for each hospital. 94 hospitals (22.5%) did not own an MRI machine that could provide diffusion-weighted images. 209 hospitals (50%) operated their MRI 24 hours a day. CT and MRI were mainly performed for stroke patients, but the imaging strategy could be different at each hospital.
