Changes in lumbosacral spinal nerve roots on diffusion tensor imaging in spinal stenosis

• Published in: Neural regeneration research Vol. 10; no. 11; pp. 1860 - 1864
• Main Authors: Hou, Zhong-Jun, Huang, Yong, Fan, Zi-Wen, Li, Xin-Chun, Cao, Bing-Yi
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: India Medknow Publications and Media Pvt. Ltd 01.11.2015; Medknow Publications & Media Pvt. Ltd; Department of Radiology, the Second Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University, Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, China%Department of Orthopedics, the Second Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University, Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, China%Department of Radiology, the First Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University, Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, China; Medknow Publications & Media Pvt Ltd; Wolters Kluwer Medknow Publications
• Subjects: Back pain; Diagnosis; DTI; Fecal incontinence; Health aspects; Magnetic resonance imaging; Medical imaging; Methods; Morphology; nerve regeneration; magnetic resonance imaging; diffusion tensor imaging; lumbosacral area; degeneration; nerve root; fractional anisotropy; neural regeneration; Patients; Spinal diseases; Spinal nerves; Spinal stenosis; Stenosis; 各向异性; 成像; 扩散张量; 狭窄; 神经; 腰椎; 退行性疾病; United States > US; lumbosacral area; magnetic resonance imaging; neural regeneration; diffusion tensor imaging; fractional anisotropy; nerve regeneration; nerve root; degeneration
• ISSN: 1673-5374; 1876-7958
• DOI: 10.4103/1673-5374.170317

Lumbosacral degenerative disc disease is a common cause of lower back and leg pain. Conventional T1-weighted imaging（T1WI） and T2-weighted imaging（T2WI） scans are commonly used to image spinal cord degeneration. However, these modalities are unable to image the entire lumbosacral spinal nerve roots. Thus, in the present study, we assessed the potential of diffusion tensor imaging（DTI） for quantitative assessment of compressed lumbosacral spinal nerve roots. Subjects were 20 young healthy volunteers and 31 patients with lumbosacral stenosis. T2 WI showed that the residual dural sac area was less than two-thirds that of the corresponding normal area in patients from L3 to S1 stenosis. On T1 WI and T2 WI, 74 lumbosacral spinal nerve roots from 31 patients showed compression changes. DTI showed thinning and distortion in 36 lumbosacral spinal nerve roots（49%） and abruption in 17 lumbosacral spinal nerve roots（23%）. Moreover, fractional anisotropy values were reduced in the lumbosacral spinal nerve roots of patients with lumbosacral stenosis. These findings suggest that DTI can objectively and quantitatively evaluate the severity of lumbosacral spinal nerve root compression.