Cerebrovascular disease in patients with antiphospholipid antibody syndrome: a transcranial Doppler and magnetic resonance imaging study.

OBJECTIVE

Transcranial Doppler (TCD) and brain MRI may be useful in evaluating patients with APS, helping to stratify the risk of cerebrovascular ischaemic events in this population. This study aimed to assess the frequency of brain MRI abnormalities in patients with primary antiphospholipid syndrome, secondary antiphospholipid syndrome and SLE and correlate to TCD findings.

METHODS

The study, conducted over four years at two autoimmune disease referral centres, included 22 primary antiphospholipid syndrome patients, 24 secondary antiphospholipid syndrome patients, 27 SLE patients without APS and 21 healthy controls. All participants underwent TCD to assess cerebral haemodynamics, detect microembolic signals and evaluate right-to-left shunts, followed by brain MRI and magnetic resonance angiography. MRI scans were reviewed for acute microembolism, localized cortical infarctions, border infarctions, lacunar infarctions, ischaemic lesions, white matter hyperintensity, micro and macro haemorrhages and arterial stenosis ≥50% of the cervical carotid artery, by two neuroradiologists blinded to the clinical data.

RESULTS

Brain MRI findings were similar between the groups, except for lacunar infarction, more frequent in patients with secondary antiphospholipid syndrome ( = 0.022). Patients with intracranial stenosis detected by TCD had a higher frequency of territorial infarction (40% vs 7.5%,  = 0.02), lacunar (40% vs 11.3%,  = 0.075) and border zone infarcts (20% vs 1.9%,  = 0.034).

CONCLUSIONS

Patients with intracranial stenosis presented a higher frequency of territorial, lacunar and border zone infarcts, suggesting that evaluating the intracranial vasculature should not be neglected in patients with APS and stroke.