Signal intensity correlation of MRI with pathological findings in spinal neurinomas

MR signal intensities at 0.282 T were correlated with the pathological findings in 23 cases of spinal neurinoma. With T2-weighted images (SE-T2WI or RARE-T2WI), all the tumors displayed high signal intensities similar to that of cerebrospinal fluid, indicating long T2 values. It is shown that the long T2 values of neurinomas are caused not only by intratumoral cystic formation, as reported by other authors, but also by intratumoral Antoni B structure, intratumoral micronecrosis and intratumoral vascular malformation. On SE-T1WI, the majority of neurinomas (73.9%) were isointense to spinal cord while the minority (26.1%) were hypointense. The similarity of the T1 values of neurinomas to that of the spinal cord may be related to the abundance of Schwann cells within the tumors, but tumors hypointense to cord and tumors isointense to cord on T1WI showed no significant difference in their gross and microscopic pathology.