Retrospective Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2023. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Radiol. Apr 28, 2023; 15(4): 127-135
Published online Apr 28, 2023. doi: 10.4329/wjr.v15.i4.127
Does sevoflurane sedation in pediatric patients lead to “pseudo” leptomeningeal enhancement in the brain on 3 Tesla magnetic resonance imaging?
Kiran Hilal, Kumail Khandwala, Saima Rashid, Faheemullah Khan, Shayan Sirat Maheen Anwar
Kiran Hilal, Kumail Khandwala, Faheemullah Khan, Shayan Sirat Maheen Anwar, Department of Radiology, Aga Khan University Hospital, Karachi 74800, Pakistan
Saima Rashid, Department of Anesthesiology, Aga Khan University Hospital, Karachi 74800, Pakistan
Author contributions: Hilal K contributed to conceptualization, methodology, supervision, reviewing and editing; Khandwala K contributed to formal analysis and original draft preparation; Rashid S contributed to data curation, visualization and investigation; Khan F contributed to data curation and software; Anwar SSM contributed to reviewing and editing; all authors have participated in final editing of the drafts and have reviewed the final version of the paper.
Institutional review board statement: This study was approved by the Ethics Committee of Aga Khan University Hospital on April 22, 2020 (2020-3611-9104).
Informed consent statement: There was no direct patient contact and no intervention. It was just a retrospective review of files and images that is why the patient consent was waived by the ethical review committee.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All authors declare having no conflicts of interest with any related company, institution or individual.
Data sharing statement: The dataset may be provided by the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Shayan Sirat Maheen Anwar, FCPS, MBBS, Assistant Professor, Department of Radiology, Aga Khan University Hospital, National Stadium Rd, Karachi 74800, Pakistan. shayan.anwar@aku.edu
Received: February 19, 2023
Peer-review started: February 19, 2023
First decision: March 15, 2023
Revised: March 28, 2023
Accepted: April 18, 2023
Article in press: April 18, 2023
Published online: April 28, 2023
Processing time: 65 Days and 18.5 Hours
Core Tip

Core Tip: Prominent leptomeningeal contrast enhancement (LMCE) in the brain is seen in some pediatric patients during sedation for imaging, but they do not exhibit meningeal disease. This pattern of pseudo LMCE is relatively common on post-contrast spin echo-T1-weighted magnetic resonance imaging of pediatric patients sedated by sevoflurane due to their fragile and immature vasculature. Knowing pertinent clinical history is an essential prerequisite to avoid radiological overcalling and additional investigations. Our study determined whether sevoflurane inhalation in pediatric patients led to pseudo LMCE on 3 Tesla magnetic resonance imaging.