Abstract #3139

Rapalino O, Law M, Salibi N, Babb J, Hesseltine S, Gonen O

Neurosurgical triage of patients with cervical spondylosis is highly dependent on demonstrating abnormal cord signal at conventional MR imaging; however, changes in spinal cord function and symptomatology precede findings of abnormal cord signal. We obtained single voxel spectra at 1.5T from 6 normal volunteers and 8 patients with cervical spondylosis, using a modified PRESS sequence. There was a statistically significant decrease in NAA/Cr ratio and elevation in Cho/NAA in symptomatic patients with spondylosis. The study suggests that changes in metabolite ratios can be detected in patients with cervical spondylosis before the typical signal cord changes are seen on T2-weighted images.