Research progress of diffusion tensor imaging in spinal cord injury

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QI Qunya CHEN Nan

Cite this article as: QI Q Y, CHEN N. Research progress of diffusion tensor imaging in spinal cord injury[J]. Chin J Magn Reson Imaging, 2023, 14(12): 151-155. DOI:10.12015/issn.1674-8034.2023.12.027.

Abstract

[Abstract] Spinal cord injury (SCI) is a disease with high disability and mortality rates. Conventional spinal cord MRI can be used to evaluate macrostructural changes caused by edema and hemorrhage after SCI, but it cannot clearly show the changes in microstructures such as axons and myelin after injury. Therefore, it is difficult to use conventional spinal cord MRI to objectively judge the degree and prognosis of SCI. Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) is a non-invasive MRI technique that can reflect the changes in microstructures after SCI using the diffusion information of water molecules in tissues. The quantitative indicators and diffusion tensor tractography (DTT) can help to judge the degree of injury and the prognosis of patients, providing more objective reference information for clinical treatment decisions. This article reviews the application of DTI in SCI, aiming to understand the research status of DTI in SCI and provide reference for the research and development of DTI in SCI in the future.

[Keywords] spinal cord；myelopathy；spinal cord injury；magnetic resonance imaging；diffusion tensor imaging；diffusion tensor tractography

Contributor Information

QI Qunya^{1,
2} CHEN Nan^{1,
2*}

¹ Department of Radiology and Nuclear Medicine, Xuanwu Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing 100053, China

² Beijing Key Lab of MRI and Brain Informatics, Beijing 100053, China

Corresponding author: CHEN N, E-mail: chenzen8057@sina.com

Conflicts of interest None.

Publication Information

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 81271556, 81871339).

Received 2023-07-07

Accepted 2023-12-05

DOI: 10.12015/issn.1674-8034.2023.12.027

Text

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