Analysis of pathological parameters of cervical spondylotic myelopathy using magnetic resonance imaging

Cervical spondylotic myelopathy is a cervical degenerative disease that seriously jeopardizes the physical and mental health of patients. The aim of this study was to use magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to compare differences in pathological parameters among the healthy group, latent cervical spondylosis (LCS) group, and cervical spondylotic myelopathy (CSM) group.

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) describes cervical spine changes from the Pavlov ratio of the cervical spinal canal on sagittal T2-weighted images (T2WI), trace value and fractional anisotropy (FA) value of cervical spinal cord on Diffusion tensor images (DTI). In our study, above mentioned parameters were compared among Group A (healthy group), Group B (LCS group) and Group C (CSM group).

In Pavlov ratio, there were statistical differences on 7 levels of 10 levels between Group A and B, on all levels between Group C and another two groups. On trace value, there was no statistical difference on all levels between Group A and B. There are statistical differences on 7 levels of 10 levels between Group C and another two groups. On FA value, there was also no statistical difference on all levels between Group A and B. There were statistical differences on 3 levels of 10 levels between Group A and C, on 5 levels of 10 levels between Group B and C. The Pearson correlation between trace value and FA value is -0.526 (p = 0).

The MRI scan results showed that there was a significant difference among the three groups for the parameter Pavlovian ratio, but not for the parameter trace value and FA value.