Fast magnetic resonance imaging in spinal trauma.

In a prospective comparison between fast magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) sequences and conventional spin-echo in a series of 20 patients, gradient-echo imaging was found to be inferior to spin-echo, especially in the visualization of spinal cord oedema, and the use of a rapid spin-echo sequence was limited by inferior visualization of haemorrhage. While the use of a combination of these two fast imaging techniques resulted in equivalent results to conventional spin-echo, the increased imaging time suggests that fast MRI cannot, as yet, replace conventional spin-echo techniques in acute spinal trauma.