Zhongping Zhang1, Queenie Chan2,
Marina Portia Anthony1, Kenneth MC Cheung3, Mina Kim1
1Department of Diagnostic Radiology,
The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China; 2Philips
Healthcare, Hong Kong, China; 3Division of Spine Surgery,
Department of Orthopaedics and Traumatology, Faculty of Medicine, The
University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
Intervertebral
disc (IVD) degeneration is an age-related condition which is associated with
a loss of matrix molecules resulting in an alteration of the biochemical and
biomechanical tissue properties. Shedding light on age-related matrix
alterations may help improve our understanding of the regulatory mechanisms
involved during IVD degeneration. In the present work, we conducted diffusion
tensor imaging (DTI) for investigating the diffusion patterns of human IVDs.
Our results show that DTI-derived metrics can sensitively assess age-related
matrix alterations, which may potentially be a useful biomarker in monitoring
degenerative disc disease.