TY - JOUR T1 - T1 Mapping for Microstructural Assessment of the Cervical Spinal Cord in the Evaluation of Patients with Degenerative Cervical Myelopathy JF - American Journal of Neuroradiology JO - Am. J. Neuroradiol. SP - 1348 LP - 1357 DO - 10.3174/ajnr.A7157 VL - 42 IS - 7 AU - G. Baucher AU - H. Rasoanandrianina AU - S. Levy AU - L. Pini AU - L. Troude AU - P.-H. Roche AU - V. Callot Y1 - 2021/07/01 UR - http://www.ajnr.org/content/42/7/1348.abstract N2 - BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Although current radiologic evaluation of degenerative cervical myelopathy by conventional MR imaging accurately demonstrates spondylosis or degenerative disc disease causing spinal cord dysfunction, conventional MR imaging still fails to provide satisfactory anatomic and clinical correlations. In this context, we assessed the potential value of quantitative cervical spinal cord T1 mapping regarding the evaluation of patients with degenerative cervical myelopathy.MATERIALS AND METHODS: Twenty patients diagnosed with mild and moderate-to-severe degenerative cervical myelopathy and 10 healthy subjects were enrolled in a multiparametric MR imaging protocol. Cervical spinal cord T1 mapping was performed with the MP2RAGE sequence procedure. Retrieved data were processed and analyzed regarding the global spinal cord and white and anterior gray matter on the basis of the clinical severity and the spinal canal stenosis grading.RESULTS: Noncompressed levels in healthy controls demonstrated significantly lower T1 values than noncompressed, mild, moderate, and severe stenotic levels in patients. Concerning the entire spinal cord T1 mapping, patients with moderate-to-severe degenerative cervical myelopathy had higher T1 values compared with healthy controls. Regarding the specific levels, patients with moderate-to-severe degenerative cervical myelopathy demonstrated a T1 value increase at C1, C7, and the level of maximal compression compared with healthy controls. Patients with mild degenerative cervical myelopathy had lower T1 values than those with moderate-to-severe degenerative cervical myelopathy at the level of maximal compression. Analyses of white and anterior gray matter confirmed similar results. Strong negative correlations between individual modified Japanese Orthopaedic Association scores and T1 values were also observed.CONCLUSIONS: In this preliminary study, 3D-MP2RAGE T1 mapping demonstrated increased T1 values in the pathology tissue samples, with diffuse medullary alterations in all patients with degenerative cervical myelopathy, especially relevant at C1 (nonstenotic level) and at the maximal compression level. Encouraging correlations observed with the modified Japanese Orthopaedic Association score make this novel approach a potential quantitative biomarker related to clinical severity in degenerative cervical myelopathy. Nevertheless, patients with mild degenerative cervical myelopathy demonstrated nonsignificant results compared with healthy controls and should now be studied in multicenter studies with larger patient populations.DCMdegenerative cervical myelopathyCmaxmaximal compressionHChealthy controlsmJOAmodified Japanese Orthopaedic AssociationOSSoverall stenosis scoreSCspinal cord ER -