[Magnetic resonance tomography in the diagnosis of vertebro-neurological diseases]

Vertebral osteochondrosis is one of the most prevalent diseases of man. The principal method for its diagnosis is x-ray examination that shows the major changes in the spine and, only indirectly, in the cord. The details are revealed by computer-aided tomography. Magnetic resonance tomography (MRT) is the most informative for the purpose, for it permits the assessment of the fine shifts in the brain and adjacent tissues, as well as the status of the vertebral disks by a noninvasive method. A total of 453 patients with various diseases of the spine and cord were examined with the TOMIKON BMT 1100 T tomographer with different pulsed sequences SPIN-echo and GRADIENT-echo, that helped differentiate between the lesions with similar clinical symptoms, such as vertebral disk hernias, extramedullary tumors, cicatricial deformations compressing the dural space and the cord, costal changes, etc. Traumatic injuries of the spinal cord, compressions of the cord with subsequent posttraumatic syringomyelia could be well differentiated. These results evidence the efficacy of MRT as a method for the diagnosis of vertebro-neurologic diseases, particularly those lacking clear-cut symptoms. MRT advantages are the possibility of imaging in many projections and visualisation of soft-tissue structures without resorting to invasive methods.