Imaging of bone marrow disease in the spine

Bone marrow imaging has been greatly advanced with magnetic resonance (MR) imaging. Bone marrow contains fat and nonfat cells, which makes imaging with MR imaging the modality of choice, particularly within the spine. Any alteration within the marrow makeup is usually well seen with different MR imaging sequences. Conventional spin-echo sequences are helpful because of their great signal-to-noise ratio, and anatomic detail. Other, newer sequences--such as short T1 inversion recovery (STIR), diffusion weighted, fat suppression techniques; as well as in- and opposed-phase images--may also help to increase detection of or characterize certain diseases of the bone marrow within the spine. This article deals with the different imaging sequences available to radiologists when imaging the spinal bone marrow.