Please advise

The report of MRI brian scan for my loved brother who is 41 only reads as follows "Few tiny non enhancing T2W and T2 flair hyperintensities in centrum semiovale and periventricular white matter bilaterally – suggestive of small vessel ischaemic disease"
Could somebody explain in laymans terms - what it means and how serious is it?
Are there cures available for this monsterous sounding disease?

Seek Blessings for your responses.

[Lulu54]

Ischemic disease simply means a restriction of blood flow to the area.  A lot of times this is seen as a warning sign for a increased risk of a possible stroke. It is also a common radiologist explanation for unexplained spots on the brain.

Serious?  It really depends on the cause of those spots  - can you tell us why he was having an MRI performed?  Perhaps that will give us a better clue as to what he might be looking at.......

be well,
Lulu

[deemed]

Thanks Lulu.

He has history of leaukemia which was completely cured two decades back.
This MRI was recently suggested by oncological unit. It seems he was prescribed and given heavy medication before 3 years for some stomach infecton.

The report reads MR imaging of brain was perfomed using T1 FLAIR, FSE T2W, POST CONTRAST T1W sequences.

In addition to above and prior post it also mentions there is no intracranical space occupying lesion. The grey - white matter diffrentiation is well maintained. the cortial gyri and sulci appear normal. The ventricals are normal in size no displacement or compression. the basal cisterns are normal. there is no shift of the midline structures noted. The Basal gangalia, brain stem and cerebellum also appear normal.


  

[jensequitur]

The neurologists always say that a few small punctate lesions are normal.  I don't think they're normal, but if your brother has a medical history including leukemia and a stomach infection, then they wouldn't be too far out of the box.

Typically punctate lesions in the absence of neurological symptoms are written off to ischemic damage from high blood pressure or smoking.

[Lulu54]

It sounds like the doctors who ordered this MRI were looking for disease activity associatedd with the leukemia or some type of cancer.  

Their report makes his brain sound rather normal.  The nonenhancing comment means that if these were MS spots, the lesions would be older than 30-40 days. Nonenhancing is a good thing.

Your brother is lucky to have you worrying about him.  I hope these tests turn up nothing and you both to go back to enjoying each other without health concerns.

my best,
Lulu

[biowham]

Lu and Jen have got it right. Doesn't sound like a too-alarming result. Sounds like overall, his brain looks pretty good!

Bio