Value of Additional Cervicothoracic Sagittal T2-Weighted Images in Elderly Patients with Symptoms Suggestive of Lumbar Spinal Stenosis

Abstract

Degenerative spinal stenosis in the lumbar or cervical spine is a common disease in the elderly population, because these are the most mobile segments of the spine. Degenerative spinal stenosis can present as concurrent lumbar spinal stenosis (LSS) and cervical spinal stenosis (CSS), which was first described by Teng and Papatheodorou (1) in 1964. Several studies–performed using clinical or radiologic diagnoses based on radiography, myelography, or CT findings only in symptomatic patients–have shown the incidence of tandem spinal stenosis (TSS) to range from 5% to 25% (2-4). The incidence of TSS in the asymptomatic population is expected to be higher than suggested in past reports. MR imaging is now widely used for the evaluation and diagnosis of spinal disorders (5). For the past several years in our institute, additional cervicothoracic sagittal T2-weighted images (CT-sag-T2WI) have been routinely obtained in the lumbar spine MR images for all patients. Using spine coils for scanning the lumbar spine, additional CT-sag-T2WI can easily be obtained without changing the coils and with an additional scan time of less than two minutes. We have frequently observed TSS in the Value of Additional Cervicothoracic Sagittal T2-Weighted Images in Elderly Patients with Symptoms Suggestive of Lumbar Spinal Stenosis 요추 척추관 협착증의 증상을 보이는 노인 환자에서 경흉추 시상 단면 T2 강조 자기공명영상 소견의 가치