Spinal cord microstructure integrating phase-sensitive inversion recovery and diffusional kurtosis imaging

Purpose The aim of this prospective study was to determine the feasibility in terms of repeatability and reproducibility of diffusional kurtosis imaging (DKI) for microstructural assessment of the normal cervical spinal cord (cSC) using a phase-sensitive inversion recovery (PSIR) sequence as the anatomical reference for accurately defining white-matter (WM) and gray-matter (GM) regions of interests (ROIs). Methods Thirteen young healthy subjects were enrolled to undergo DKI and PSIR sequences in the cSC. The repeatability and reproducibility of kurtosis metrics and fractional anisotropy (FA) were calculated in GM, WM, and cerebral-spinal-fluid (CSF) ROIs drawn by two independent readers on PSIR images of three different levels (C1–C4). The presence of statistically significant differences in DKI metrics for levels, ROIs (GM, WM, and CSF) repeatability, reproducibility, and inter-reader agreement was evaluated. Results Intra-class correlation coefficients between the two readers ranged from good to excellent (0.75 to 0.90). The inferior level consistently had the highest concordance. The lower values of scan–rescan variability for all DKI parameters were found for the inferior level. Statistically significant differences in kurtosis values were not found in the lateral white-matter bundles of the spinal cord. Conclusion The integration of DKI and PSIR sequences in a clinical MR acquisition to explore the regional microstructure of the cSC in healthy subjects is feasible, and the results obtainable are reproducible. Further investigation will be required to verify the possibility to translate this method to a clinical setting to study patients with SC involvement especially in the absence of MRI abnormalities on standard sequences.