The Investigation Of Findings Obtained Of Imaging In Patients With Neurological Symptoms Caused By Preeclampsia And Eclampsia

Abstract

Introduction: Preeclampsia and eclampsia are the most common disorders of during pregnancy periods and despite prenatal care are still considered as the most important causes of death and complications during these periods. If this disease is not diagnosed and treated quickly, it will lead to many complications, including localized neurological complications, mental state changes and coma. Therefore, the objective of this study is to determine the distribution and nature of findings obtained of brain imaging in eclampsia and preeclampsia and to determine its relationship with clinical and laboratory data.

Materials and Methods: This study was based on a descriptive-analytical type. The target population was included the patients with neurological symptoms due to gestational hypertension referred to the neurology department of the hospital. The patients first completed a demographic form that is included personal information, age, weight, and height. Then, the patients who were included in the study had referred to the radiology department and brain imaging of the patients was performed. After performing brain imaging of patients, the prepared images were interpreted and the obtained information were recorded in the relevant form, and finally, the collected information were analyzed.

Results: A total of 38 patients were included in the study. 31 patients (81.57%) had eclampsia and 7 patients (18.43%) had preeclampsia and a total of 13 patients (34.21%) had PRES in both groups which from these 13 patients, 11 patients (84.61%) had eclampsia and 2 patients (15.36%) had preeclampsia. There was not a significant difference between the two groups of eclampsia and preeclampsia in terms of mean gestational age. Regarding to pregnancy duration, it was observed that the incidence of eclampsia was higher in the first pregnancies. As it was observed, there is not a significant relationship between neurological symptoms and the location of the lesion (P <0.05). The imaging results showed that approximately 100% of patients referring had cerebral edema, 60.52% had ischemia in DWI images and only 15.78% of patients had cerebral hemorrhage and also it was determined that Parietal lobe with about 86.84% had the highest and Brain stem with 2.63% had the lowest frequency of lesion incidence.

Conclusion: In this study, it was found that cerebral edema is the most common imaging finding in these patient and after that, ischemia and hemorrhage were placed in the next stages. Also, the most common site of parietal lobe involvement was determined. However, in the present study, there was not found any evidence of a relationship between selected neurological symptoms and imaging findings.