BLADE in Sagittal T2-Weighted Imaging of the Cervical Spine: Reduction of Artifacts and Value for Clinical Application

Claudia Fellner¹, Cynthia Menzel¹, Franz A. Fellner², Christine Ginthr², Niels Zorger¹, Ernst M. Jung¹, Stefan Feuerbach¹, Thomas Finkenzeller¹

To evaluate the BLADE technique for sagittal T2-weighted imaging of the cervical spine for routine application, BLADE and TSE sequences were compared in 60 successive patients. Image sharpness, motion, truncation and metal artifacts, flow phenomena, vertebral body/disk and spinal cord/CSF contrast, and diagnostic reliability of spinal cord depiction were graded visually. BLADE was statistically superior to TSE for all criteria except for metal artifacts. In a side-by-side comparison of both sequences BLADE was superior for diagnostic purpose in 50/60, inferior in 3/60 patients. Therefore, BLADE seems to be a promising technique for routine sagittal T2-weighted imaging of the cervical spine.