Enedino Hernandez Torres1,2, Alex L. MacKay2,3,
Erin MacMillan4, Teodoro Cordova Fraga1, Alonso Ramirez
Manzanares5, Armin Curt6, David Li2,
Burkhard Mdler7, M Dvorak8
1Division de Ciencias e Ingenierias,
Universidad de Guanajuato, Leon, Guanajuato, Mexico; 2Radiology,
University of British Columbia, Canada, Vancouver, Brithish Columbia, Canada;
3Physics & Astronomy, University of British Columbia, Canada,
Vancouver, Brithish Columbia, Canada; 4Clinical Research,
University of Bern; 5Facultad de Matematicas, Universidad de
Guanajuato, Guanajuato, Mexico; 6Spinal Cord Injury Center,
University of Zurich; 7Philips Healthcare, Vancouver, Brithish
Columbia; 8International Collaboration on Repair Discoveries
Diffusion
measures have proved to be useful in cervical spondylotic myelopathy (CSM).
This study compared two methods of analysis for spinal DTI in CSM subjects
and normals. The first approach defined the spine area on the basis of a
fractional anisotropy threshold of 0.3; the second employed a threshold based
upon eigenvector orientation within 45 degrees of the direction of the spine.
The two approaches yielded markedly different diffusion measures in controls,
in stenotic regions and in non-stenotic regions. Further examination revealed
that the eigenvector orientation approach included signal from CSF and hence
gave artifactual results.