Possible Empirical Evidence of Glymphatic System on Computed Tomography After Endovascular Perforations

The glial-lymphatic pathway is a fluid-clearance pathway consisting of a para-arterial route for the flow of cerebrospinal fluid along perivascular spaces and subsequently toward the brain interstitium. In this case series, we aim to investigate an empirical demonstration of glymphatic clearance of extravasated iodine following perforation incurred during endovascular therapy on serial computed tomography. METHODS: Six consecutive cases of endovascular perforation during thrombectomy performed between 2005 and 2018 were retrospectively collected by searching our internal database of total 446 thrombectomies. Two cases were excluded because care was withdrawn shortly following the procedure and no follow-up imaging was available. One case was excluded because a ventricular drain was placed. Three cases were hence included in this analysis. RESULTS: All 3 cases demonstrated progressive absorption of contrast by the brain parenchyma with eventual contrast disappearance. CONCLUSIONS: We described a likely in vivo computed tomography correlate of the glymphatic system in a cohort of patients who sustained intraprocedural extravasation during thrombectomy for acute ischemic stroke.