Viola, R., Aslan, S., Al-Smadi, M.W., & Viola, Á. (2023). Enhancing Osteoporotic Vertebral Fracture Diagnosis and Treatment Planning: Comparing CT and STIR Sequence MRI. Preprints. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202312.0334.v1
Chicago/Turabian Style
Viola, R., Mohammad Walid Al-Smadi and Árpad Viola. 2023 "Enhancing Osteoporotic Vertebral Fracture Diagnosis and Treatment Planning: Comparing CT and STIR Sequence MRI" Preprints. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202312.0334.v1
Abstract
In response to a threefold increase in osteoporotic vertebral fractures (OVF) at our institution over the past decade and the subsequent development of new fractures within a year in a third of cases, we evaluated the effectiveness of STIR MRI scans in conjunction with CT scans for initial OVF diagnosis. This study, conducted over five months, involved full spine sagittal STIR MRI scans alongside CT scans for patients over 50 with minor injury-related vertebral fractures. The independent assessments by radiologists and neurosurgeons of 64 patients revealed that while CT scans identified 161 fresh fractures, of which only 68 were previously reported, MRI detected 266 fractures, 1.65 times more than CT. CT scans showed single fractures in 27% of patients and multiple fractures in 73%, whereas MRI identified single fractures in 9% and multiple fractures in 91% of patients. Additionally, MRI demonstrated a 1.5-fold increase in adjacent fracture detection. The use of MRI influenced treatment plans in 67% of cases. Given these findings, we advocate for including a STIR MRI of the entire spine alongside CT scans in OVF cases, as it significantly enhances fracture detection and can alter treatment strategies.
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