Abstract:

The term small vessel disease(SVD) encompasses all pathological processes that affect the small vessels of brain, including small arteries, arterioles, capillaries and small veins. Most often, SVD is used to refer only to the arterial vessels. Clinical features range from none specific symptoms, to discrete focal neurological symptoms(e.g., lacunar stroke), and insidious global neurological dysfunction such as vascular cognitive impairment and dementia, gait disturbances, mild parkinsonian signs and so on. However, SVD is neglected by many clinicians, although it compromise patient's quality of life seriously. The imaging features of SVD on MRI play an important role for diagnosis, these features include acute lacunar infarcts, lacunes, white matter lesions, enlarged perivascular spaces and microbleeds. Here, we summarize the neuroimaging and clinical features of SVD for the purpose of early recognition and management of SVD.

Key words: small vessel disease, lacunar infarct, white matter lesions