The imaging of an intraspinal cervical dermoid tumor by MR, CT, and sonography

Epidermoid and dermoid tumors are uncommon lesions and within the spinal cord are rare. Magnetic resonance imaging has proved sensitive to their detection in the intracranial cavity but the pattern of signal intensities on T1 and T2 weighted images has not been uniform. Utilizing a 0.6 T superconductive magnet an intramedullary cervical dermoid tumor was examined. The correlation between CT demonstrated regions of fat density and the MRI appearance of comparable regions of high intensity signal on T1 weighted images has only rarely been demonstrated in such tumors that have no histologic evidence of adipose tissue. MRI provided all of the information needed pre-operatively.