Advances of ¹¹C-flumazenil receptor imaging in ischemic penumbra

The ischemic penumbra is the target of therapy for ischemic stroke patients, so it is extremely important to investigate an imaging technique that may identify accurately the viability of cerebral tissues early. The neuroreceptor imaging with positron emission tomography has achieved some successes in this study field, in particular, the ¹¹C-flumazenil receptor imaging, which can not only differentiate between the neurons of functional impairment and those of morphological destruction, and then distinguish the is-chemic penumbra from the irreversible damage tissues, but predict the malignant course of cerebral infarction. Consequently, these will help to select the patients benefiting from the intervention therapy and plan effectively the therapeutic strategies.