This is the latest in my series of posts titled Annotated Bibliography, that is, current literature titles which are generally not from the mainstream Radiology journals, but rather from related neuroscience fields which I have stumbled across and find of interest.  Enjoy!

1.  Mitochondrial Neurogastrointestinal Encephalopathy Due to Mutations in RRM2B. Arch Neurol. 2009;66(8):1028-1032.  Just read the intro section and look at the images.  I had never head of MNGIE before.  The FLAIR images provided at least sort-of point to the diagnosis of “mitochondrial disease”.

2.  Depletion of B Lymphocytes From Cerebral Perivascular Spaces by Rituximab.  Arch Neurol. 2009;66(8):1016-1020.  Rituximab not only reduces the number of B cells in the peripheral blood and CSF in patients with MS, is also seems to decrease brain perivascular space B cells.

3.  Toxic and Acquired Metabolic Encephalopathies: MRI Appearance.  AJR 2009; 193:879–886.  A few examples of the classic toxic lesions in a pictorial essay.  Not an exhaustive categorization.  A classic “chasing the dragon” is not shown, nor is delayed posthypoxic leukoencephalopathy (such as seen with carbon monoxide poisoning).

4.  Window anatomy for neurosurgical approaches.  J Neurosurg 111:365–370, 2009.  Interesting for the elegant dissections and the review of craniometric points that I had forgotten (bregma, stephanion, pterion, lambda, asterion).

5.  Screening for blunt cerebrovascular injury: selection criteria for use of angiography.  J Neurosurg / July 31, 2009.  A high frequency of BCI occurred in patients with fractures of the cervical spine, midface, and cranial base after high-velocity trauma.  Isolated thoracic injuries and soft tissue injuries to the neck were only associated with BCI in 3/30 angiographic studies.

6.  Systematic Characterization of the Computed Tomography Angiography Spot Sign in Primary Intracerebral Hemorrhage Identifies Patients at Highest Risk for Hematoma Expansion. Stroke 2009;40:2994-3000.  An important predictor of significant hematoma expansion in primary ICH, independent of time from ictus to MDCTA evaluation, admission INR, mean arterial blood pressure, blood glucose level, and initial ICH volume.

7.  Transcorporeal Approach for Disc Herniation at the C2-C3 Level.  J Spinal Disord Tech 2009;22:459–462.  A drill hole of 5mm diameter was made at the middle of the C3 vertebral body and extended cranioposteriorly to the superoposterior border of the C3 endplate with disk removal.

8.  Long-Term Outcome After Suboccipital Decompressive Craniectomy for Malignant Cerebellar Infarction.  Stroke 2009;40:3045-3050.  Only neuroradiological evidence of brain stem infarction was associated with poor outcome. Other factors such as age, gender, GCS before surgery, co-morbidity, time to surgery, and bilateral versus unilateral cerebellar infarction showed no significant association with poor outcome.

9.  Magnetic resonance neurography for the evaluation of peripheral nerve, brachial plexus, and nerve root disorders.  J Neurosurg / August 7, 2009.  Nothing too fancy on the technical side, with STIR in everybody, and selected addition of axial volumetric 3D DESS sequences.

10. Large-Cohort Comparison Between Three-Dimensional Time-of-Flight Magnetic Resonance and Rotational Digital Subtraction Angiographies in Intracranial Aneurysm Detection.  Stroke 2009;40:3127-3129.  As the childhood rhyme goes: When it is good, it is very, very good.

11.  Comparative Reliability of 3 Thoracolumbar Fracture Classification Systems.  J Spinal Disord Tech 2009;22:422–427.  Denis, Association for Osteosynthesis (AO), and Thoracolumbar Injury Severity Score (TLISS) systems evaluated by spine surgeons, spine fellows, nonspine orthopedists, and orthopedic residents.  TLISS is acceptably reliable system compared with simple versions of Denis and AO systems.

12.  Reversing Stroke in the 2010s Lessons From Desmoteplase In Acute ischemic Stroke-2 (DIAS-2).  Stroke 2009;40:3156-3158.  Interesting editorial given the negative results of the DIAS 2 trial (Lancet Neurol 2009; 8: 141–50).  Is advanced stroke imaging superfluous?

13.  Anterior Transvertebral Herniotomy for Cervical Disc Herniation A Long-term Follow-up Study.  J Spinal Disord Tech 2009;22:408–412.  20 patients with follow up of more than 10 years showed good clinical outcome. Degenerative changes at the adjacent levels were not enhanced.

14. Multiinstitutional validation of the University of California at San Francisco Low-Grade Glioma Prognostic Scoring System.  J Neurosurg 111:203–210, 2009.  Four variables were confirmed to be predictive of survival in a multivariate analysis—1) location of tumor in eloquent cortex, 2) KPS score ≤ 80, 3) age > 50 years, and 4) maximum tumor diameter > 4 cm—and were applied to a set of 256 patients at 3 external institutions and analyzed for survival.

15.  Emerging Viral Infections of the Central Nervous System.  Arch Neurol 2009;66(8):939-948.  Nice review.  This first part discusses West Nile virus (WNV), Japanese encephalitis (JE) virus, Toscana virus, and enterovirus 71 (EV71).

16.  Neuromyelitis Optica IgG Serostatus in Fulminant Central Nervous System Inflammatory Demyelinating Disease.  Arch Neurol 2009;66(8):964-966.  NMO IgG is a specific biomarker for NMO and is not seen with other severe inflammatory CSN demyelinating disease, even if fulminant.