Abstract #3983

Relative quantification of the 23Na MRI signal of human intervertebral lumbar discs

Stephan Gruber¹, Stefan Zbyn², Thomas Stulnig³, Wolfgang Bogner¹, Siegfried Trattnig^1,4, and Lenka Minarikova¹

¹HFMR, Department of Biomedical Imaging and Image-guided Therapy, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria, ²Research Unit of Medical Imaging, Physics and Technology, University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland, ³Clinical Division for Endocrinology and Metabolism, Department of Medicine III, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria, ⁴CD Laboratory for Clinical Molecular MR Imaging, Vienna, Austria

23Na MRI was applied in five healthy volunteers to determine the feasibility of intervertebral discs sodium signal quantification using the cerebrospinal fluid signal from the spinal column as an internal reference. There were no significant differences between the five measured volunteers, or between the different discs (L1/2 – L5/S1), that were analysed. Therefore, internal referencing using CSF has the potential for sodium content quantification in intervertebral discs, which may be used as an indicator of disc degeneration.

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