Feifei Zeng, Yunfei Zha, Liang Li, Dong Xing, Wei Gong, Lei Hu, Yang Fan


August 2019, Volume 28, Issue 9, pp 2169 - 2178 Original Article Read Full Article 10.1007/s00586-019-06007-z

First Online: 15 May 2019

A comparative study of diffusion kurtosis imaging and T2* mapping in quantitative detection of lumbar intervertebral disk degeneration

Purpose

To assess the feasibility of diffusion kurtosis imaging (DKI) for diagnosing lumbar intervertebral disk degeneration (IDD) and to compare the potential of DKI and T2* mapping in the diagnosis of early IDD.

Methods

Sagittal T2WI, DKI, and T2* mapping were performed in 75 subjects with 375 lumbar intervertebral disks at a 3.0-T MRI. DKI-related parameters including mean kurtosis (MK), mean diffusivity (MD), fractional anisotropy (FA), and T2* values were calculated for each disk which was segmented into three regions: nucleus pulposus (NP), anterior annulus fibrosus (AAF), and posterior annulus fibrosus (PAF).

Results

MK and FA were positively correlated with Pfirrmann grade (all P  0.05). MK and FA values increased, while MD and T2* values decreased with age. No statistical significance was found between men and women (P > 0.05). Cephalic lumbar disks (L1/L2 and L2/L3) got lower MK and FA values than caudal lumbar disks (L4/L5 and L5/S1) (all P 

Conclusions

DKI can be used to assess human lumbar IDD. And DKI was more sensitive to the quantitative detection of early lumbar IDD than T2* mapping.

Graphical abstract

These slides can be retrieved under Electronic Supplementary Material.[Figure not available: see fulltext.]


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