Diffusion Tensor Imaging Study on Cervical Spinal Cord Injury without Radiographic Abnormality / 中国康复理论与实践

ABSTRACT

Objective To apply MR diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) to quantitatively analyze cervical spinal cord injury without radio-graphic abnormality (CSCIWORA). Methods 15 patients with CSCIWORA and 20 healthy controls were scanned with MRI of convention-al scans and DTI. The fractional anisotropy (FA) and apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) were measured. Results FA and ADC of the pa-tients were (0.475±0.109) and (1.438±0.252)×10-3 mm2/s, respectively. Whereas, they were (0.604±0.096) and (1.371±0.280)×10-3 mm2/s in the controls. Compared with the controls, the FA was less (P<0.05) in the patients, but the ADC was not significantly different (P=0.267). The fiber tracking (FT) showed the abnormality of white matter fiber tracts of cervical spinal cord in the patients. Conclusion DTI can de-tect the CSCIWORA, and FT can directly display the injuries of white matter fiber tracts of cervical spinal cord, which provide more infor-mation to evaluate the clinical severity of CSCIWORA.