Stefan Golaszewski
Paracelsus Medical University Salzburg, Austria
Title: DTI and Evoked Potentials in Spinal Cord Injury patients
Biography
Biography: Stefan Golaszewski
Abstract
Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) is a promising tool in diagnosis of SCI-patients. The aim of this study was to correlate DTI-parameters with electrophysiological and neurological measures in these patients. 7 SCI-patients participated in this study and 8 healthy controls. DTI data of the spinal cord were acquired with a Philips Achieva 3T-MR-scanner using a single-shot EPI-sequence. Neurological and electrophysiological measures (MEP, SSEP) and American Spinal Injury Association (ASIA) impairment scale scores were assessed in the patients. In SCI-patients the Fractional Anisotropy (FA) values for the lesioned fiber tracks were significantly decreased compared to the healthy controls. The decrease in FA was significant for corticospinal and sensory tracts. The decrease of DTI values correlated with the SSEP and MEP latencies and amplitudes and the ASIA score. The reduced DTI values seen in the SCI-patients are likely due to demyelination and axonal degeneration of spinal tracts. A reduction in DTI values in regions remote from the lesion site suggests their involvement with wallerian axonal degeneration. DTI can be used for the quantitative evaluation of the extent of spinal cord damage, and eventually to monitor the effects of future regeneration-inducing treatments.