Intramedullary disease of the spine: diagnosis using gadolinium-DTPA-enhanced MR imaging. Academic Article uri icon

Overview

abstract

  • Twenty-six patients with suspected lesions of the spinal cord were studied before and after administration of gadolinium-DTPA to assess whether contrast enhancement was useful in the MR evaluation of intramedullary disease. Nine patients had primary tumors, six had benign syringes, three had multiple sclerosis with cord involvement, three had thrombosed vascular malformations, three had probable intramedullary metastasis, and two were normal. Although all lesions were detected on noncontrast MR scans, gadolinium-DTPA was of great help in their delineation and characterization. Specifically, contrast material may be able (1) to localize tumor nidus and separate it from edema, in cases of hemangioblastomas and metastases; (2) to suggest regions of more active tumors, in cases of glioma, for surgical biopsy or removal; (3) to differentiate benign or reactive processes from neoplastic lesions, such as reactive cyst from tumor cyst or hematoma due to thrombosed malformation from tumor hemorrhage; and (4) possibly to differentiate active from inactive lesions, for example, in multiple sclerosis. Because of these advantages, gadolinium-DTPA probably will often be used routinely when intramedullary lesions are detected on noncontrast MR scans.

publication date

  • December 1, 1988

Research

keywords

  • Magnetic Resonance Imaging
  • Organometallic Compounds
  • Pentetic Acid
  • Spinal Cord Neoplasms

Identity

Scopus Document Identifier

  • 0023689722

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

  • 10.2214/ajr.151.6.1193

PubMed ID

  • 3263773

Additional Document Info

volume

  • 151

issue

  • 6