Imaging of the spine: Where do we stand?

• 作者: Mohamed R Nouh
• 来源期刊: 世界放射学杂志:英文版(电子版)
• 学科: 医学
• 关键词: SPINE RADIOGRAPHY Multi-detector COMPUTED TOMOGRAPHY Magnetic resonance IMAGING
• 年，卷（期）: 2019,（4）
• 页码范围: 55-61
• 页数: 7页
• 分类号: R

摘要

The number of patients presenting with spine-related problems has globally increased, with an enormous growing demand for the use of medical imaging to address this problem. The last three decades witnessed great leaps for diagnostic imaging modalities, including those exploited for imaging the spine. These developments improved our diagnostic capabilities in different spinal pathologies, especially with multi-detector computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging, via both hardware and software improvisations. Nowadays, imaging may depict subtle spinal instability caused by various osseous and ligamentous failures, and could elucidate dynamic instabilities. Consequently, recent diagnostic modalities can discern clinically relevant spinal canal stenosis. Likewise, improvement in diagnostic imaging capabilities revolutionized our understanding of spinal degenerative diseases via quantitative biomarkers rather than mere subjective perspectives. Furthermore, prognostication of spinal cord injury has become feasible, and this is expected to be translated into better effective patient tailoring to management plans with better clinical outcomes. Meanwhile, our confidence in diagnosing spinal infections and assessing the different spinal instrumentation has greatly improved over the past few last decades. Overall, revolutions in diagnostic imaging over the past few decades have upgraded spinal imaging from simple subjective and qualitative indices into a more sophisticated yet precise era of objective metrics via deploying quantitative imaging biomarkers.