ASIA scores correlate with DTI Metrics in Non-Hemorrhagic Traumatic C-Spine Injury

Introduction Conventional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is the best imaging modality to demonstrate ligamentous injury, hematoma, disk herniation, spinal cord edema and hemorrhage that occur following trauma. Quantitative and qualitative image parameters like lesion length, maximum spinal cord compression, spinal cord swelling and, presence of hemorrhage within the cord has been reported to be useful in predicting neurological outcome. There has been recent interest in evaluating spinal cord injury using diffusion tensor imaging (DTI). Recently, experimental DT-MRI derived measurement performed in the rat spinal cord during the hyperacute period following injury reported axial diffusion measurements were helpful to predict severity of injury and correlated well with histology. The purpose of our retrospective study was to determine the correlation between American Spine Injury Association (ASIA) clinical injury motor score in patients with traumatic cervical cord injury and the various DT-MRI parameters.