Measurement of the cervical spinal cord volume on MRI.

BACKGROUND

There are some reports about the relationships between the clinical manifestations and the spine morphology or spinal cord morphology in patients with myelopathy. It has also been reported that there are interindividual variations in the cross-sectional area of the spinal cord. In most of these reports, the cross-sectional area, compression ratio, and anteroposterior diameter were used as morphologic parameters of the spinal cord, but no reports have been published on the use of spinal cord volume.

OBJECTIVES

To measure the cervical spinal cord volume of healthy people and to evaluate the relationships between this volume and each of height, body weight, age, and gender, in a morphologic study of cervical spinal cord on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).

METHODS

The cervical spinal cord volume of 90 healthy people (47 males, 43 females) was measured on MRI, and the relationships between this volume and each of gender, height, body weight, and age were evaluated. In addition, the cervical spinal cord volume ratio was evaluated.

RESULTS

Our study showed that in healthy people, the cervical spinal cord volume depended on the gender, age, height, and body weight and that the cervical spinal cord volume was larger in the males than in the females, decreased with age, and increased with height and body weight. However, the cervical spinal cord volume ratio was not affected by gender, age, height, or body weight.

CONCLUSIONS

We consider that the cervical spinal cord volume ratio can be used to evaluate cervical spinal cord atrophy in patients with cervical myelopathy and can be important information in looking for clinically critical points. The cervical spinal cord volume was larger in males than in the females, decreased with age, and increased with height and body weight. The cervical spinal cord volume ratio was not affected by gender, age, height, or body weight.