[A preliminary study of dual-source computed tomography dual energy imaging in the diagnosis of acute traumatic bone marrow lesions in spine].

OBJECTIVE: To explore the feasibility of virtual noncalcium technique from dual-source computed tomography (DSCT) for the diagnosis of vertebral bone marrow lesions.

METHODS: A total of 13 patients with acute vertebral bone marrow lesions underwent both DSCT and MRI within 3 days. And the DSCT dual-energy CT data were postprocessed for generating virtual noncalcium images and color-coded maps. Two radiologists analyzed the lesions of bone marrow by magnetic resonance (MR) imaging and virtual noncalcium images on a three-level. MR imaging interpretation served as the reference standard. Consistency check was conducted by using kappa statistics. And then the sensitivity of DSCT dual energy imaging was examined in the diagnosis of acute traumatic bone marrow lesions in spine.

RESULTS: Among them, 13 vertebral body with bone marrow lesions were detected by MRI. The T2WI fat-suppression irregular high signal and slightly high density shadow under the background in noncalcium images corresponded to corresponding high signal areas on MRI. Interreader agreement was substantial for qualitative grading of DE CT images (κ = 0.629). The sensitivity of DSCT dual energy virtual noncalcium images in the diagnosis of acute traumatic bone marrow lesions in spine were 92.3% and 84.6% for observers 1 and 2.

CONCLUSION: Distinct traumatic bone marrow lesions of spine may be diagnosed with a high sensitivity on virtual noncalcium images reconstructed from DSCT and color-coded maps. And it is worth further explorations.