(October 31, 2007 - Insidermedicine) Due to improvements in technology, more and more brain scans are being ordered for patients each year and as a result, brain abnormalities such as stroke, aneurysm, and tumours are being found in otherwise asymptomatic patients, according to a report published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Here is some information about detecting brain abnormalities:
•    Magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI, is now more sensitive at detecting subtle changes in the brain and as a result is being used more frequently.
•    It is thought that these advances in technology will result in more patients being detected with incidental brain abnormalities – previously undetected changes that may or may not be life-threatening.
•    Some of the abnormal findings include brain infarcts, or stroke, caused by an interruption in blood supply to the brain; cancerous and benign brain tumours; and cerebral aneurysms, bulging blood vessels in the brain caused by weakness in the artery wall which in some instances can burst and bleed into the brain.

In the present study, researchers aimed to determine the approximate number of brain abnormalities detected in asymptomatic patients undergoing MRI. They reviewed the incidental findings among 2000 people 45 years of age and older from the general population who had no signs or symptoms of having brain abnormalities.

Asymptomatic brain infarcts were detected in 7% of the people tested, 2% had aneurysms, and 1.6% had benign tumours originating in the brain. The likelihood of having brain infarcts and brain tumours, they found, increased with age.

Incidental findings in MRI are common and information regarding the prognosis of these abnormalities is needed to determine what steps, if any, should be taken to treat these patients.

We spoke to Dr. Meike Vernooij from Erasmus University Medical Center in the Netherlands about the significance of these results for the general population.

For Insidermedicine in Depth, I'm Dr. Susan Sharma.