Imaging of Spinal Cord Injury: Acute Cervical Spinal Cord Injury, Chronic Spondylotic Myelopathy and Cord Herniation

Publication date: Available online 6 May 2016 Source:Seminars in Ultrasound, CT and MRI Author(s): Kiran Talekar, Michael Poplawski, Rahul Hegde, Mougnyan Cox, Adam Flanders We review the pathophysiology and imaging findings of acute traumatic spinal cord injury (SCI), chronic spondylotic myelopathy (CSM), and briefly review the much less common cord herniation as a unique cause of myelopathy. Acute traumatic spinal cord injury (SCI) is devastating to the patient and the costs to society are staggering. There are currently no “cures” for SCI and the only accepted pharmacologic treatment regimen for traumatic SCI is currently being questioned. Evaluation and prognostication of spinal cord injury is a demanding area with significant deficiencies, including lack of biomarkers. Accurate classification of spinal cord injury is heavily dependent on a good clinical exam, the results of which can vary substantially based upon the patient's condition/ comorbidities and the skills of the examiner. Moreover, the full extent of a patient's neurologic injury may not become apparent for days after injury; by then, therapeutic response may be limited. While MRI is the best imaging modality for the evaluation of spinal cord parenchyma, conventional MR techniques do not appear to differentiate edema from axonal injury. Recently, it is proposed that in addition to characterizing the anatomic extent of injury, metrics derived from conventional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) ...
Source: Seminars in Ultrasound, CT and MRI - Category: Radiology Source Type: research