Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jul 9, 2025
Evaluation of Patients' Posture and Gait Profile After Lumbar Fusion Surgery by Video Rasterstereography and Treadmill Gait Analysis
Published on: March 23, 2019
Correlation between MRI-based spinal muscle parameters and the vertebral bone quality score in lumbar fusion patients
Manuel Moser1,2, Leonardo Albertini Sanchez1,3, Dominik Adl Amini1,4
1Spine Care Institute, Hospital for Special Surgery, Weill Cornell Medicine, 535 East 70th Street, New York, NY, 10021, USA.
Introduction:
The vertebral bone quality (VBQ) score that is based on non-contrast enhanced T1-weighted MRI was recently introduced as a novel measure of bone quality in the lumbar spine and shown to be a significant predictor of healthy versus osteopenic/osteoporotic bone.
Research Question:
This study aimed to assess possible correlations between the VBQ score and the functional cross-sectional area (FCSA) of psoas and lumbar spine extensor muscles.
Material And Methods:
Patients who underwent fusion surgery between 2014 and 2017 and had lumbar MRI and CT scans within 6 months prior to surgery were included. The FCSA was assessed at L3-L5 using a pixel intensity threshold method. The VBQ score was calculated by dividing the signal intensity (SI) of the vertebrae L1-L4 through the SI of the cerebrospinal fluid at L3. Volumetric bone mineral density (vBMD) was assessed by quantitative CT.
Results:
80 patients (58.8% female, median age 68.8 years) were included. Overall prevalence of osteopenia/osteoporosis was 66.3%, with no significant differences between men and women. The mean (SD) VBQ score was significantly smaller in men, at 2.26 (0.45) versus women at 2.59 (0.39) (p = 0.001). After adjusting for age and BMI, a significant negative correlation was seen between the VBQ score and psoas FCSA at L3 (β = -0.373; p = 0.022), but only in men.
Conclusion:
Our results highlight sex differences in the VBQ score that were not demonstrated by vBMD and suggest a potential role of this novel measure to assess not only bone quality, but also spinal muscle quantity.
