Cerebral computed tomography in uremic and hemodialyzed patients.

Sixty-nine uremic patients, 19 on conservative and 50 on regular hemodialysis treatment (RDT), showing no clinical symptoms attributable to central nervous system impairment, were examined by cerebral CT to discover morphological modifications in brain structure and determine their incidence. A CT picture indicative of cortical atrophy was observed in 56.5% of the cases, associated with ventricular atrophy (15.9%), especially in patients on long-term RDT. In addition, CT revealed areas of low density related to past episodes of cerebral ischemia in 10.1% of the cases and some small calcifications in the brain parenchyma in 4.5% of the patients. The degree of these lesions seems to correlate with the duration of uremia.