That means that the radiologist thinks they saw evidence of small areas of the brain dying off or getting irritated due to lack of blood flow. That may sounds scary, but tiny punctate spots are just that TINY.. it probably hasn't affected much of your brain. But that will need to be compared with what the neurologist finds when they examine you. You can upload the scan and discuss with a doc if u

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Brief Answer:
When to use contrast

Detailed Answer:
Hi, Thanks for following up. So contrast media are dyes that are specially formulated to travel in the blood stream and mix with the blood very evenly. They show up nice and bright on the MRI or CT scan that they are being used for.

Now if you want to see a artery or vein problem.... a VASCULAR problem in the brain... contrast enhanced scans are the best. On the other hand... if you want to look at the fine details of the brain tissue... contrast will muck up the picture.

So it really depends on what they plan to look for when they do the scan. They may need to do both a contrast scan and non contrast scan to see whats going on.

Hope that made sense. Let me know what you are thinking.

Vinay

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