Intervertebral disk degeneration related to reduced vertebral marrow perfusion at dynamic contrast-enhanced MRI.
OBJECTIVE
The purpose of this study was to use dynamic contrast-enhanced MRI to ascertain the relation between intervertebral disk degeneration and lumbar vertebral marrow blood perfusion.


METHODS
We recruited 25 patients (50 vertebral bodies) who underwent dynamic contrast-enhanced MRI of the lumbar spine. The peak signal enhancement of each vertebral body was calculated from the time signal after curve fitting of a pharmacokinetic model. We controlled for other variables that might have affected blood perfusion by assessing two vertebral bodies in each patient. The 25 patients were divided into three groups. In group 1, one of the vertebral bodies (L1 or L3) evaluated was between two adjacent normal disks and the other was between two adjacent degenerated disks. In group 2, each of the two vertebral bodies evaluated was between two normal disks. In group 3 each of the two vertebral bodies evaluated was between two degenerated disks.


RESULTS
Without normalization by minimization of other variables, there were no statistically significant differences in original peak enhancement values among groups 1, 2, and 3 (p = 0.179). After normalization, the peak enhancement in group 1 (0.846 +/- 0.060) was significantly lower than that in group 2 (0.988 +/- 0.047) (p = 0.003) or group 3 (0.973 +/- 0.081) (p = 0.008).


CONCLUSIONS
After normalization, lumbar vertebral marrow perfusion correlated well with intervertebral disk degeneration evaluated with dynamic contrast-enhanced MRI. Blood perfusion was 14% less in the vertebral body marrow between two degenerated disks than in vertebral marrow between two normal disks.
Liu
Yi-Jui
YJ
Department of Automatic Control Engineering, Feng Chia University, Taichung, Taiwan, Republic of China.
Huang
Guo-Shu
GS
Juan
Chun-Jung
CJ
Yao
Min-Szu
MS
Ho
Wei-Pin
WP
Chan
Wing P
WP
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001853:Bone Marrow / Q000098:blood supply*; D003287:Contrast Media; D005260:Female; D019786:Gadolinium DTPA; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D007405:Intervertebral Disc Displacement / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000209:etiology*; D016018:Least-Squares Analysis; D008159:Lumbar Vertebrae / Q000098:blood supply*; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000379:methods*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric
D003287:Contrast Media; D019786:Gadolinium DTPA