Department of Radiology, Hallym University Dongtan Sacred Hospital, Hwaseong-si, Gyeonggi-Do, Korea.
Department of Neurology, Hallym University Dongtan Sacred Hospital, Hwaseong-si, Gyeonggi-Do, Korea.
Curr Med Imaging. 2022;18(8):893-897. doi: 10.2174/1573405618666220103105910.
Spinal Cord Infarction (SCI) is difficult to diagnose because of its rarity, unknown etiology, and unestablished diagnostic criteria. Additionally, the timeline of SCI has not been studied in detail, as few studies using Diffusion-Weighted Image (DWI) sequences of the spine of a small target population have been previously conducted.
A 56-year-old male with underlying arrhythmia suddenly developed visual field defects on the right side, pain in the left upper extremity, and a tingling sensation in the left hand. Brain Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) revealed acute to subacute stages of multifocal brain infarction. On additional cervical spinal MRI, it showed atypical MRI findings of SCI, considered late acute to early subacute phase, which were similar to those seen in the acute phase of multiple sclerosis (MS). Additional DWI revealed restricted diffusion. From these findings, it could be inferred that the patient's SCI occurred at the same time as the multifocal brain infarctions caused by atrial fibrillation.
A DWI sequence of spine MRI could be helpful in the diagnosis of acute to subacute phase SCI and in differentiating with acute MS.
脊髓梗死（SCI）由于其罕见性、未知病因和未确立的诊断标准，难以诊断。此外，由于先前进行的针对小目标人群的脊柱弥散加权成像（DWI）序列的研究较少，因此 SCI 的时间进程尚未得到详细研究。
一名 56 岁男性患有潜在的心律失常，突然出现右侧视野缺损、左上肢疼痛和左手刺痛感。脑部磁共振成像（MRI）显示多灶性脑梗死处于急性至亚急性期。进一步的颈椎 MRI 显示 SCI 的非典型 MRI 表现，考虑为晚期急性至早期亚急性阶段，与多发性硬化症（MS）的急性期相似。额外的 DWI 显示弥散受限。根据这些发现，可以推断出患者的 SCI 与由心房颤动引起的多灶性脑梗死同时发生。
脊柱 MRI 的 DWI 序列有助于诊断急性至亚急性阶段的 SCI，并与急性 MS 进行区分。
