A Case of Acute Basilar Artery Occlusion for Which an Early Diagnosis Was Obtained by Flow-sensitive Alternating Inversion Recovery Magnetic Resonance Imaging

　Acute basilar artery occlusion（BAO）has a diagnosis difficulty and a poor prognosis. We report the use of tissue plasminogen activator intravenous therapy for BAO within 30 minutes of the initial symptoms, in a patient who underwent flow-sensitive alternating inversion recovery（FAIR）-MR imaging.
The presence of an ischemic penumbra is an important indicator of potentially better clinical outcome and fewer hemorrhagic complications resulting from thrombolysis therapy. This information can be obtained by comparison between the diffusion image and perfusion image of FAIR. An 85-year-old woman with chronic subdural hematoma underwent burr-hole surgery, and postoperatively the residual subdural fluid collection was well controlled. Three weeks later, she suddenly developed basilar artery thromboembolism and received t-PA intravenous therapy. Her modified NIH stroke scale score recovered from 20 to 7 without hemorrhagic complications.
We believe that FAIR-MR could become a valuable tool for taking thrombolysis therapy in patients with acute cerebral infarction.