Chapter 8 - Relationship of cerebral microbleeds to other imaging findings

Summary

Cerebral microbleeds (CMB) are considered a marker of an underlying hemorrhage-prone small vessel vasculopathy. The brain changes that accompany CMB may be a direct consequence of the CMB, of an underlying vasculopathy, or of risk factors associated with CMB or the underlying vasculopathies that cause CMB. This chapter reviews data associating CMBs with other neuroimaging findings. The relationships between CMBs and brain infarcts, hemorrhage and brain atrophy is discussed in general and in the context of specific small vessel diseases. CMBs are more frequent in patients with neuroimaging findings of white matter lesions (WML) and lacunar infarctions. By contrast, CMBs are not independently associated with brain atrophy, probably because the actual tissue damage directly caused by CMBs is minimal. These observations are consistent with the concept that CMBs are one of several neuroimaging markers of small vessel arterial disease.