Jared Narvid1,
Suchandrima Banerjee2, Jason Talbott1, Michel Kliot3,
Cynthia Chin1
1Neuroradiology,
UCSF, San Francisco, CA, United States; 2Global Applied Sciences,
GE Healthcare, Menlo Park, CA, United States; 3Neurosurgery, UCSF,
San Francisco, CA, United States
Non-invasive imaging methods that can visualize axons in peripheral nerves may be useful in helping to distinguish axonontmetic nerve injuries which can recover through axonal regeneration from neurotmetic injuries which cannot either due to physical discontinuity in the nerve or intraneural fibrosis which impedes nerve fibers from regenerating. It would also be useful to visualize the spatial relationship of axons to tumors arising from nerves to help determine the surgical resectablility of such masses when clinically appropriate. We have successfully applied rFOV DTI to visualize nerve fibers in the clinical setting of traumatic nerve injuries and peripheral nerve tumors.