CT of the lumbosacral spine: importance of tomographic planes parallel to vertebral end plate.

An experimental computer program capable of reformatting stored display data from a CT scanner into true cross-sectional images of the spine has been clinically tested over a 1 year period. With this program, tomographic planes exactly parallel to the vertebral end plate can be imaged at the lumbosacral level even in patients who are markedly rotated or have scoliotic deformities. The reformatted image planes are tilted in the dorsoventral and mediolateral directions to compensate for lordosis or scoliosis. The reformatting can also produce images in coronal and sagittal planes on axes other than true horizontal or vertical. The program has been used in the examination of 269 spines and has been found to be valuable in demonstrating the spinal canal and the intervertebral foramina.