PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - M. Drake-Pérez
AU  - B.M.A. Delattre
AU  - J. Boto
AU  - A. Fitsiori
AU  - K.-O. Lovblad
AU  - S. Boudabbous
AU  - M.I. Vargas
TI  - Normal Values of Magnetic Relaxation Parameters of Spine Components with the Synthetic MRI Sequence
AID  - 10.3174/ajnr.A5566
DP  - 2018 Mar 01
TA  - American Journal of Neuroradiology
4099  - http://www.ajnr.org/content/early/2018/03/01/ajnr.A5566.short
4100  - http://www.ajnr.org/content/early/2018/03/01/ajnr.A5566.full
AB  - BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: SyMRI is a technique developed to perform quantitative MR imaging. Our aim was to analyze its potential use for measuring relaxation times of normal components of the spine and to compare them with values found in the literature using relaxometry and other techniques.MATERIALS AND METHODS: Thirty-two spine MR imaging studies (10 cervical, 5 dorsal, 17 lumbosacral) were included. A modified multiple-dynamic multiple-echo sequence was added and processed to obtain quantitative T1 (millisecond), T2 (millisecond), and proton density (percentage units [pu]) maps for each patient. An ROI was placed on representative areas for CSF, spinal cord, intervertebral discs, and vertebral bodies, to measure their relaxation.RESULTS: Relaxation time means are reported for CSF (T1 = 4273.4 ms; T2 = 1577.6 ms; proton density = 107.5 pu), spinal cord (T1 = 780.2 ms; T2 = 101.6 ms; proton density = 58.7 pu), normal disc (T1 = 1164.9 ms; T2 = 101.9 ms; proton density = 78.9 pu), intermediately hydrated disc (T1 = 723 ms; T2 = 66.8 ms; proton density = 60.8 pu), desiccated disc (T1 = 554.4 ms; T2 = 55.6 ms; proton density = 47.6 ms), and vertebral body (T1 = 515.3 ms; T2 = 100.8 ms; proton density = 91.1 pu). Comparisons among the mean T1, T2, and proton density values showed significant differences between different spinal levels (cervical, dorsal, lumbar, and sacral) for CSF (proton density), spinal cord (T2 and proton density), normal disc (T1, T2, and proton density), and vertebral bodies (T1 and proton density). Significant differences were found among mean T1, T2, and proton density values of normal, intermediately hydrated, and desiccated discs.CONCLUSIONS: Measurements can be easily obtained on SyMRI and correlated with previously published values obtained using conventional relaxometry techniques.PDproton densitypupercentage units