Abstract #0421

In Vivo Sodium MRI of Intervertebral Disc At 7T

Chenyang Wang^1,2, Mark Elliott³, Thomas Connick³, Walter Witshcey³, Joseph Calabro⁴, Ari Borthakur³, Ravinder Reddy³

¹School of Medicine, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA; ²Bioengineering, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA; ³Radiology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA; ⁴Siemens Medical Solutions, USA

Intervertebral disc degeneration is a common and sometimes painful condition. The initial sign of intervertebral disc degeneration involves the breakdown of proteoglycans and the accompanying depletion of Na+. Sodium MRI has previously been used to study the depletion of Na+ in intervertebral disc ex vivo. In this study, we carried out in vivo sodium MRI of intervertebral disc on a 7 T MRI scanner. The tissue [Na+] value calculated from the sodium MR images were correlated with intervertebral disc degenerative grade, in order to elucidate the trend in [Na+] content in IVDs undergoing degeneration.