Abstract #0053

In Plane T2 Mapping & Diffusion Tensor Imaging of Lumbar Nerve Roots Using a Reduced-FOV Acquisition

Dimitrios C. Karampinos¹, Gerd Melkus¹, Timothy M. Shepherd¹, Suchandrima Banerjee², Emine U. Saritas³, Ajit Shankaranarayanan², Chistopher P. Hess¹, Thomas M. Link¹, William P. Dillon¹, Sharmila Majumdar¹

¹Department of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, United States; ²Global Applied Science Laboratory, GE Healthcare, Menlo Park, CA, United States; ³Department of Bioengineering, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, United States

T2 mapping and diffusion tensor imaging may quantitate inflammatory changes to lumbar nerve roots affected by degenerative spine disease. However, imaging spinal nerve roots accurately is difficult due to their small caliber and oblique course in all three planes. We describe initial success using a reduced-FOV single-shot spin-echo EPI acquisition to obtain T2 mapping and DTI of the bilateral lumbar nerve roots at the L4 level for healthy volunteers.