title: Quantitative magnetic resonance imaging of the lumbar intervertebral discs.
abstract: Human lumbar spine is composed of multiple tissue components that serve to provide structural stability and proper nutrition. Conventional magnetic resonance (MR) imaging techniques have been useful for evaluation of IVD, but inadequate at imaging the discovertebral junction and ligamentous tissues due primarily to their short T2 nature. Ultrashort time to echo (UTE) MR techniques acquire sufficient MR signal from these short T2 tissues, thereby allowing direct and quantitative evaluation. This article discusses the anatomy of the lumbar spine, MR techniques available for morphologic and quantitative MR evaluation of long and short T2 tissues of the lumbar spine, considerations for T2 relaxation modeling and fitting, and existing and new techniques for spine image post-processing, focusing on segmentation. This article will be of interest to radiologic and orthopaedic researchers performing lumbar spine imaging.
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, VA San Diego Healthcare System, San Diego, CA, USA; ; School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Yonsei University, Seoul, Korea.
authors.forename: Dosik
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Hwang
authors.affiliation: School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Yonsei University, Seoul, Korea.
authors.forename: Sewon
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, University of California-San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA.
authors.forename: Nirusha A
authors.initials: NA
authors.lastname: Abeydeera
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, VA San Diego Healthcare System, San Diego, CA, USA; ; Department of Radiology, University of California-San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA.
authors.forename: Sheronda
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Statum
authors.affiliation: Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, University of California-San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA.
authors.forename: Koichi
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Masuda
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, VA San Diego Healthcare System, San Diego, CA, USA; ; Department of Radiology, University of California-San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA.
authors.forename: Christine B
authors.initials: CB
authors.lastname: Chung
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, University of California-San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA;; Department of Radiology, Faculty of Medicine, Siriraj Hospital, Mahidol University, Bangkok, Thailand.
authors.forename: Palanan
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Siriwanarangsun
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, VA San Diego Healthcare System, San Diego, CA, USA; ; Department of Radiology, University of California-San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA.
authors.forename: Won C
authors.initials: WC
authors.lastname: Bae
keywords: Low back pain; cartilaginous endplate (CEP); discovertebral junction; image processing; intervertebral disc; vertebral body