Hi,
A couple months ago I had a surgery for a Chiari malformation. I just recently had an MRI, which detected leakage of the CSF around the surgery sight, but the MRI also mentions other things that I cannot make any sense of. The first MRI that was done before my surgery never mentioned any of this other stuff. I would like someone who knows how to read these reports to give me an idea of what this is saying to me in terms that I can understand especially the red shaded sentences, and does this finding present a new problem.

Thank you.

H


MR BRAIN:

This patient is status post suboccipital craniectomy for decompression of a Chiari malformation. The brain parenchyma demonstrates a single focus of aberrant bright signal intensity in the deep white matter of the left occipital lobe. The appearance of this structure is non-specific. It measures 3 millimeters in greatest dimension. It is bright on long TR imaging and of diminished signal intensity on short TR imaging. It may reflect an area of focal small vessel ischemic change. There are similar foci adjacent to the occipital horns of both lateral ventricles and the frontal horns of both lateral ventricles. These may well reflect focal ischemic change as well. No intracranial hemorrhage or mass lesion is seen. The ventricles are normal in size. There is extensive inflammatory change in the paranasal sinuses, particularly on the left. A pathologic fluid collection is identified in the midline of the left craniocervical junction incident to the prior surgery. There is no suggestion of Chiari malformation at this time.

IMPRESSION:

1. No etiology for headaches is identified on this study.
2. Status post-suboccipital craniectomy for Chiari malformation decompression. There is a pathologic fluid collection identified in the midline of the cranial cervical junction posteriorly at the operative site.
3. Foci of aberrant bright signal intensity felt to reflect the sequela of small vessel ischemic change in the periventricular region and right occipital lobe as described above.