An acute bleed into a long-standing cystic mass within the brain. Arrow points to bleeding and mass. CT scan (computed tomography) of the brain (without any iodinated contrast), is the initial imaging choice because of its high speed, good accessibility in hospitals, high sensitivity in detecting brain injuries or brain diseases, thus helping to triage patients in emergency department in a timely manner and urgent neurosurgical intervention can be administered. Examples of brain diseases that require urgent intervention are: large volume<unk> , brain herniation, and cerebral infarction. Other advantages of CT over MRI scan are ability to detect bony fractures, vascular injury, and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) leak. It also does not need to screen for MRI safety of implants/foreign body especially for penetrating or blast injuries. However, MRI has higher sensitivity than CT scan for the detection of epidural<unk> , subdural<unk> , subarachnoid<unk> , nonhemorrhagic cortical contusions, haemorrhagic parenchymal contusions, brainstem injuries, and white matter axonal injuries. If CT scan shows normal findings, but the subject has persistent neurological symptoms, MRI is also indicated. However, MRI safety concerns on metallic foreign bodies, limited availability, longer imaging time, high sensitivity to motion, and higher cost limits the usefulness of MRI. Swirl sign on CT scan (areas of low densities with surrounding areas of high densities) is indicative of active intracranial bleeding, high chance of death within one month, and poor subject's function in three months if the subject is still alive. When ICP is increased the heart rate may be decreased.
Intracranial hemorrhage
Intracerebral hemorrhage
Subarachnoid hemorrhage
Epidural hematoma
Intracranial hypertension syndrome
Brain herniation
Brain ischemia
Hemarthrosis