MRI in the evaluation of late bone marrow changes following bone marrow transplantation

Measurements of MR spin-lattice (T1), and spin-spin (T2) relaxation times in lumbar vertebrae have been performed in a pilot study on six adult patients, treated for acute myeloid leukaemia (AML). All patients were treated with initial chemotherapy and then proceeded to bone marrow transplantation (BMT), conditioned with Melphalan and total body irradiation (TBI). MR measurements were made between 21 and 89 months after TBI. The relaxation times in the six patients were compared with those in six healthy age-matched volunteers to establish whether there were differences between the two groups. Average T1 values in the vertebrae of the treated patients are significantly shorter (p < 0.01) than in the healthy volunteers. This is consistent with the observation of a relatively hyperintense vertebral bone marrow in the T1 weighted images and is likely to be a consequence of treatment induced fatty replacement of marrow. Shorter T1 values tend to be distributed within the centre of the lumbar vertebrae compatible with observations, made by others, which suggest that the peripheral zone of the vertebral body has been repopulated with bone marrow cells whereas the central zone, around the basivertebral vein, is predominantly fat. Histogram displays of vertebral body relaxation time distributions (T1, T2) for both patients and healthy age-matched volunteers are similar in that both patients and volunteers give histograms that are only slightly skewed. This similarity is probably a reflection of the fact that the patients have been in remission for over a year and have generally healthy bone marrow.