Imaging of Spinal Cord Injury: Acute Cervical Spinal Cord Injury, Cervical 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), cervical spondylotic myelopathy, and briefly review the much less common cord herniation as a unique cause of myelopathy. Acute traumatic 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 SCI is a demanding area with significant deficiencies, including lack of biomarkers. Accurate classification of SCI is heavily dependent on a good clinical examination, the results of which can vary substantially based upon the patient׳s condition or comorbidities and the skills of the examiner. Moreover, the full extent of a patients׳ neurologic injury may not become apparent for days after injury; by then, therapeutic response may be limited. Although magnetic resonance imaging (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 MRI and diffusion tensor imaging, in conjunction with...
Source: Seminars in Ultrasound, CT and MRI - Category: Radiology Source Type: research