Retrospective study finds predictors of negative CT perfusion in cortical infarcts, indicating clinical relevance.
Background and aims Small deep white matter infarcts, particularly in the posterior circulation, are recognised causes of false-negative CT perfusion (CTP). In contrast, little is known about CTP negativity in patients with cortical infarction. We evaluated determinants of CTP negativity in a DWI-positive cohort and performed a focused analysis of cortical-only infarcts. Methods Retrospective study of consecutive clinical CTP (October 2024–December 2025) from two acute stroke centres. Patients were included if MRI was performed within 7 days of CTP (≤8 calendar days) and was diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) positive, with radiology extracted from a structured proforma. Primary modelling compared negative vs positive CTP (excluding wrong-territory CTP). A cortical-only subgroup was defined as MRI main lesion location “cortical” with the biggest lesion in frontal/parieto-temporal/occipital regions (fig 1). Multivariable logistic regression used 5-fold cross-validation (AUC, 95% CI). Results Of 722 CTP studies, 268 had MRI within 8 days; 159 were DWI positive. For negative vs positive CTP, AUC improved from 0.692 (0.518–0.865) using clinical variables to 0.777 (0.613–0.941) after adding MRI phenotype variables. In the cortical-only subgroup (n=42; 18 negative vs 24 positive CTP), negative CTP was independently associated with diabetes (adjusted OR 66.73 (2.41–1845.36); p=0.015) and lower/absent NIHSS Visual field/Gaze deviation burden (adjusted OR 0.367 (0.150–0.898),; p=0.027). Conclusions Beyond the recognised posterior deep infarct phenotype, cortical DWI-positive infarcts can also be CTP-negative, particularly in patients with diabetes and milder visual/gaze deficits. TAKE-HOME A negative CTP does not exclude cortical infarction—clinical phenotype still matters. Conflict of interest Kausik Chatterjee: nothing to declare, Adam Seed: nothing to declare; Fathalla Elnagi: nothing to declare; NANA GYIMAH-KESSIE: nothing to declare Figure 1 - belongs to Methods Figure 2 - belongs to Results
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Gyimah-Kessie et al. (2026) studied this question.
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