Effect of Cerebrolysin on the Blood Brain Barrier in Patients With Diabetes and Ischemic Stroke

Cerebrolysin would be prepared according to manufacturer's instructions: 30 mL of cerebrolysin in 100 ml of saline solution every 24 hours to a minimum of 10 days and a maximum of 14 days

Blood-brain barrier (BBB) disruption will be measured using dynamic susceptibility contrast (DSC) magnetic resonance imaging. DSC MRI is collected during the injection of a gadolinium bolus and the majority of the change in recorded signal in this T2-weighted sequence is due to intravascular contrast. However, in the setting of gadolinium leakage through the BBB into the brain parenchyma, the recorded signal is altered by a T1 effect. An arrival time correction is performed to account for regional difference in blood flow after which the signal is separated into an intravascular and an extravascular component using a comparison with unaffected tissue.The extravascular component is captured with the metric K2 which reflects the fraction of the recorded signal that is due to gadolinium leakage and is a measure of BBB disruption.