Magnetic resonance imaging in the diagnosis and treatment of a canine spinal cord injury

Abstract

A nine-year-old female crossbred dog was presented with tetraplegia following a fall. No vertebral abnormalities were detectable on plain radiographs of the cervical spine. Magnetic resonance imaging scans revealed absence of extraparenchymal compression and an area of oedema within the cervical spinal cord, suggesting a favourable prognosis. Following nursing care and physiotherapy, the dog recovered the ability to walk, although mild neurological deficits persisted in the left limbs.

Spinal arachnoid pseudocysts in 10 rottweilers

“…This assertion is supported by the MRI findings in the five dogs in the present series, which showed increased signal intensities of the spinal cord in the T2weighted images adjacent to the pseudocyst which might be related to oedema, degeneration or malacia of the spinal cord. Similar findings are described in association with spinal cord injury (Gopal and Jefferey 2001). These results are comparable to findings seen with the use of lumbar myelography in cases of traumatic injury to the spinal cord in connection with acute disc extrusion or other insults (Grevel 1994).…”

Magnetic Resonance Imaging Characteristics of Ascending Hemorrhagic Myelomalacia in a Dog

“…Spinal parenchymal changes associated with spinal cord injury have been described in dogs, 15–18 but the MR characteristics of hemorrhagic myelomalacia have not previously been described in this species. The MR diagnosis of myelomalacia has been described in humans 19–24 .…”

Diagnostic aids

“…Other indications for MRI include degenerative (Levitski et al, 1999a,b;Lipsitz et al, 2001;Webb et al, 2001), anomalous (14.3A), inflammatory (Kraft et al, 1998) (14.15), traumatic (13.7), and vascular (14.17, 14.19) lesions (Gopal and Jeffery, 2001).…”