Chapter 4 - Definingand mapping cerebral microbleeds

Summary

Cerebral microbleeds (CMBs) are an increasingly common radiological finding in stroke, neurological and general medical practice. There are two published CMB rating scales that have been validated in hospital cohorts of stroke patients. The rating scales are the microbleed anatomical rating scale (MARS) and the brain observer micro bleed scale (BOMBS). This chapter considers the radiological criteria for defining CMBs and then discusses these standardized rating scales. The potential for automatically detecting and mapping CMBs in future is discussed briefly in the chapter. Mapping CMBs gives information on the burden of CMBs in different anatomical regions in the brain. Quantifying the number of CMBs may be relevant in exploring their relationship with other quantitative imaging or clinical data and for prognostic purposes. Although visual rating scales can improve the reliability of identifying and mapping CMBs, more sophisticated automated methods are under investigation.