Arjen Lindenholz

146 CHAPTER 6 Table 5. Associations between the number of parenchymal changes and the enhancing intracranial vessel wall lesion burden. Outcome as count Unadjusted relative risk (±95%CI) P-value Adjusted relative risk (±95%CI) P-value Infarcts Any anterior circulation infarct 1.17 (0.97-1.40) 0.096 1.10 (0.93-1.29) 0.269 Cortical infarcts 1.04 (0.93-1.15) 0.539 1.01 (0.91-1.12) 0.830 Infarcts often caused by SVD 1.01 (0.82-1.23) 0.918 0.97 (0.77-1.21) 0.773 Small subcortical infarcts NA NA NA NA Lacunes of presumed vascular origin 1.06 (0.84-1.33) 0.636 1.00 (0.77-1.31) 0.984 Deep grey matter infarcts 0.82 (0.57-1.18) 0.278 0.75 (0.53-1.06) 0.102 Cortical microinfarcts 1.59 (1.08-2.34) 0.019 1.48 (1.04-2.11) 0.032 White matter hyperintensities (Fazekas grade) Periventricular (0,1,2 or 3) NA NA NA NA Deep (0,1,2 or 3) NA NA NA NA Table 5 . Included for analysis, n = 76. Six of 82 patients did not receive contrast agent. The unadjusted and adjusted (for age and sex) relative risks including their 95% confidence interval (CI) for the number of cerebral parenchymal changes with the total number of anterior enhancing vessel wall lesions as included variable. A p-value < 0.05 was considered a statistically significant difference. For continuous count data as outcome variable a log-binomial regression model was used with a robust variance estimator. For ordinal data as outcome variable an ordinal regression model was used. Ordinal score is described as: 0 = absence or single punctate white matter hyperintensity, 1 = ‘caps’ or pencil-thin lining or multiple punctate lesions, 2 = smooth ‘halo’ or beginning confluency of lesions, 3 = large confluent lesions or irregular hyperintensities extending into the deep white matter. 28 CMI; cortical microinfarct, NA; not applicable (groups too small for reliable statistical analyses), SVD; small vessel disease.