Wenshu Qian1, Henry Mak1, Queenie
Chan2, Koon Ho Chan3, Mina Kim1
1Diagnostic Radiology, The University
of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China; 2Philips Healthcare, Hong Kong,
China; 3Medicine, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
Neuromyelitis
optica (NMO) is an inflammatory and demyelinating disease which consists of
optic neuritis and myelitis. Since it usually involves acute and severe
attacks, early diagnosis is of vital importance for proper treatment.
However, current diagnostic imaging techniques are not sensitive to
degenerative changes in early stage of NMO. In this study, we aimed to
investigate the normal appearing cervical spinal cord damage in patients with
NMO using diffusion tensor imaging (DTI). Our results show DTI-derived
metrics can sensitively assess the microstructural abnormalities, suggesting
DTI may have great potential as a useful diagnostic tool in detecting early stage
of NMO.