Neuroimaging of Pregnancy-Related Maternal Neurologic Complications

摘要

The purpose of this review is to illustrate and discuss the various neuroimaging findings of maternal neurologic complications that occur during pregnancy and the immediate postpartum period. The imaging findings as demonstrated on computed tomography, magnetic resonance imaging, and cerebral angiography are reviewed in a retrospective series of 21 patients. In the brain the cases are divided into two major pathologic categories- cere-brovascular disease (14 cases) and neoplastic disease (5 cases). The cerebrovascular disease category is further subdivided into abnormalities of the blood vessels (aneu-rysm, vascular malformation, preeclampsia and eclampsia) and vascular occlusive disease (arterial stroke, venous sinus thrombosis). The neoplasm category includes primary central nervous system tumors and metastatic tumors. Vascular and neoplastic lesions are also encountered in the spine but are not as common as biomechani-cal-related insults. The latter group of lesions consists primarily of disc herniations (1 case) and lumbosacral plexopathy (1 case). This categorization scheme readily classifies the major neurologic pregnancy-related maternal neurologic complications and facilitates the detection of these lesions in pregnant and postpartum women. The pathophysiology responsible for these unique imaging findings may reflect the hemodynamic and hormonal alterations that occur during pregnancy.