Morphological evaluation of lumbar dorsal root ganglion on three-dimensional magnetic resonance imaging / 中华放射学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To investigate the morphological features of normal lumbar dorsal root ganglia using a three-dimensional(3D)coronal MR imaging.Methods One hundred and fifteen volunteers were included.Ages ranged from 15 to 75 years,with a mean of 40 years.Coronal 3D fast field echo(FFE) with water selective excitation(Proset)MR examination of 1150 dorsal root gangha were underwent at nerve root levels from L1 to L5.The source coronal images were further reconstructed into a series of rotational alignment coronal images with an interval angel of 12 degree using maximum intensity projection(MIP) technique.All DRGs of bilateral spinal nerve from L1 to L5 were morphologically analyzed on the original and MIP images including qualitative evaluation of the location,signal intensity,architecture and quantitative dimensional measurement.Results There were 225,225,219,210 and 160 foraminal ganglia from L1 to L5 level,respectively.The incidence of intraspinal ganglia from L3 to L5 gradually increased with a maximum at L5 level of 29.1%(X~2=188.371,P