Queenie Chan1,2, Marina-Portia Anthony2,
Zhongping Zhang2, Kenneth MC Cheung3, Mina Kim2
1Philips Healthcare, Hong Kong, China; 2Department
of Diagnostic Radiology, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China; 3Division
of Spine Surgery, Department of Orthopaedics and Traumatology, Faculty of
Medicine, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
Detecting
early stages of disc degeneration is a major challenge in degenerative disc
disease (DDD) as current diagnostic techniques are not sensitive or
completely objective. Therefore, a quantitative assessment of disc
degeneration would significantly improve the evaluation of DDD. In this
study, we examined diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) in human lumbar
intervertebral discs (IVDs) to investigate changes in tissue microstructure.
Our results show that fractional anisotropy can quantitatively assess 1)
structural difference between a nucleus pulposus and an annulus fibrosus and
2) degenerative changes in IVDs, suggesting DTI may be a potential biomarker
for DDD.