Brain abnormalities in male children and adolescents with hemophilia: detection with MR imaging. The Hemophilia Growth and Development Study Group.

Cranial magnetic resonance (MR) imaging was performed in 124 male patients (aged 7-19 years), from 14 institutions, in whom a diagnosis of moderate to severe hemophilia was made. Blood tests in all subjects were negative for human immunodeficiency virus. Findings in MR studies were abnormal in 25 (20.2%) subjects. Six lesions in five subjects were classified as congenital. The most commonly identified congenital lesion was a posterior fossa collection of cerebrospinal fluid (five cases). Twenty-two subjects had acquired lesions that were probably related to the hemophilia or its treatment. The most commonly acquired lesions were single- or multifocal areas of high signal intensity within the white matter on T2-weighted images noted in 14 (11.3%) subjects. Two subjects had large focal areas of brain atrophy, and six had some degree of diffuse cerebral cortical atrophy. Three subjects (2.4%) had hemorrhagic lesions. To the authors' knowledge, the unexpected finding of small, focal, nonhemorrhagic white matter lesions has not previously been reported.