MR Imaging in Solvent-Induced Chronic Toxic Encephalopathy

PURPOSE: To use MR to examine patients with CNS symptoms indicating +chronic intoxication. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Thirty-two subjects exposed to industrial solvents for 5 to 28 years and 40 age-matched, healthy controls were examined. RESULTS: All patients showed decreased signal in the basal ganglia on T2-weighted images. In 11 of the patients the white matter showed diffuse hyperintensity with loss of the grey-white matter discrimination and with distinct periventricular hyperintensities in 5 of the patients. The controls had no pathological changes in the brain. CONCLUSION: Although the relatively small number of patients may obscure the significance, findings observed on T2-weighted images were patchy periventricular hyperintensities and hypointensities in the basal ganglia. Fast spin-echo is a good technique with fast acquisition of images with true spin-echo contrast features.