Qingwei Song BS, BEng, Presenter: Nothing to Disclose

Meiyu Sun, Abstract Co-Author: Nothing to Disclose

Qiang Wei, Abstract Co-Author: Nothing to Disclose

Shao Wu Wang MD, Abstract Co-Author: Nothing to Disclose

Ziheng Zhang, Abstract Co-Author: Nothing to Disclose

Minting Zheng, Abstract Co-Author: Nothing to Disclose

He Qing Wang MSc, Abstract Co-Author: Nothing to Disclose

To evaluate the DTI and DTT of lumbar nerve roots in the diagnosis of lumbar disc herniation through all the related qualitative info from tractography and quantitative measures of the fraction anisotropy (FA) and apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) values.

This prospective study was approved by our Institutional Review Board and written informed consent was obtained. Twenty patients (age=27-67 years; 10 males, 10 females) with clinically confirmed lumbar disc herniation and without a previous history of spinal trauma, surgery, or neurological diseases (left: 11; right: 9) and 20 normal controls (age=26-63 years; 10 males, 10 females) were performed DTI, DTT and axial T2W MRI scanning on a GE Signa HDxt 3.0T MR scanner. All fiber tracking images were taken in lumbar nerve roots with fused T2WI image as an anatomic background and the FA and ADC values of left- and right-side nerve roots were also measured for both groups. The difference between groups was compared with t-test. A P value ≤0.05 was considered statistically significant. All the original and morphologic iamges from tractography were blindly reviewed and analyzed by two experienced observers.

A high success rate (>90%) of achieving the DTI with tractography of lumbar nerve roots was obtained. At the pressurized areas of the lumbar nerve roots, a high signal intenstity was observed in the T2WI of DTI from the patients comparing with the contralateral and from the controls. In addition, apparent morphological changes were observed at the corresponding regions in a pattern of shift, bending, sparsity in number and so on. No significant difference in the mean FA and ADC values between the left- and right-side nerve roots at same level (L5 and S1) and in between. However, the mean FA values of compressed nerve roots were statistically lower (p＜0.05) than the contralateral and the controls, 0.197±0.032 vs. 0.351±0.044; and the mean ADC values of compressed nerve roots were significantly higher than the contralateral and the controls, (1.48±0.13) ×10-3 mm2/s vs. (1.32±0.14) ×10-3 mm2/s .

DTI with tractography provides an abundant diagnostic information with specificity on qualitative- and quantitative-wise, which is great helpful to assess the disorders with lumbar nerve root compression.

A strong suggestion of putting DTI scan into the clinical MRI setting for lumbar nerve roots related examinations.

Song, Q, Sun, M, Wei, Q, Wang, S, Zhang, Z, Zheng, M, Wang, H, Diagnostic Value of Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI) and Tractography (DTT) of Lumbar Nerve Roots on Lumbar Disc Herniation Assessment.  Radiological Society of North America 2014 Scientific Assembly and Annual Meeting, - ,Chicago IL. http://archive.rsna.org/2014/14012216.html