British journal of haematology
October 19, 2026 · via Europe PMC
Association of enlarged perivascular space burden with silent cerebral infarcts in children with sickle cell disease.
Karkoska KA, Gollamudi J, Williamson BJ, Sawyer RP, Woo D, Vagal A, Hyacinth HI.
AI summary — for doctors, generated from the abstract only
Children with sickle cell disease who have a high burden of enlarged perivascular spaces in the basal ganglia are more likely to have silent cerebral infarcts.
What was studied
Secondary analysis of MRI from the Silent Cerebral Infarct Transfusion Trial, quantifying ePVS in 929 children with severe SCD genotypes.
Key findings
- 48% had a high ePVS burden in at least one region.
- High basal ganglia and whole-brain ePVS burden were more common in children with silent infarcts.
- In adjusted models the association held for basal ganglia and whole brain but not centrum semiovale.
Clinical relevance
ePVS could become an imaging marker of small vessel disease and neurological risk in SCD.
Who should care
Limitations
Cross-sectional design cannot show causation or prediction, and ePVS rating is subjective.
Be aware of ePVS on MRI as a possible marker of cerebral injury, but it does not yet change management.
This is an AI-generated summary of the published abstract, not a clinical recommendation. It may not reflect the full text or subsequent updates — verify against the original source before acting on it.
Abstract
Children with sickle cell disease (SCD) have enlarged perivascular spaces (ePVS) in their basal ganglia (BG) and centrum semiovale (CSO) visible on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). ePVS are dilated fluid-filled spaces around penetrating arterioles and venules of the brain parenchyma and are a marker of cerebral small vessel disease in adults. We used the T2-weighted MRI from the Silent Cerebral Infarct Transfusion Trial to (1) quantify the ePVS burden in children with the severe SCD genotypes and (2) evaluate for an association between ePVS burden and silent cerebral infarcts (SCIs) adjusted for laboratory/imaging measures of SCD severity. The study included 929/1191 (78%) of participants with a median age of 8.9 (5-15) years, 48% female, and 48% had a high ePVS burden in at least one region. More children with a higher ePVS burden in the BG and whole brain had at least one SCI, whereas there was no difference in SCI based on ePVS burden status in the CSO. In multivariable logistic regression, high ePVS burden was associated with the presence of SCI in the BG and whole brain only. ePVS may become a useful neuroimaging biomarker of SCD-related neurological disease.
DOI
10.1111/bjh.70894
PMID
42897776
Research metadata (titles, abstracts, authors, publication dates) is sourced from Europe PMC, which aggregates content from PubMed/MEDLINE, PubMed Central, and other providers under the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM/NCBI). NLM does not claim copyright on abstracts; the original journal publishers or authors may hold rights to the full articles. AI-generated summaries are derived only from the abstract, never the full text, and are always labeled as AI-generated.
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