Authors: Raphael Fernandes Casseb Jean Levi Ribeiro de Paiva Lucas Melo Teixeira Branco Alberto Rolim Muro Martinez Fabiano Reis José Carlos de LimaJunior Gabriela Castellano Marcondes Cavalcante França Junior
Publish Date: 2016/08/25
Volume: 58, Issue: 11, Pages: 1103-1108
Abstract
We obtained spinal cord DTI and T2WI at 3 T from 28 patients 14 diabetic subjects with sensorymotor distal polyneuropathy and 20 healthy controls We quantified DTIbased parameters and looked at the hyperintense T2W signal at the spinal cord posterior columns Fractional anisotropy and mean diffusivity values at C2–C3 and C3–C4 levels were compared between groups We also compared average fractional anisotropy mean of values at C2–C3 and C3–C4 levels A receiver operating characteristic ROC curve was used to determine diagnostic accuracy of average fractional anisotropy and we compared its sensitivity against the hyperintense signal in segregating patients from the other subjectsMean age and disease duration were 52 ± 10 and 114 ± 93 years in the patient group Eighteen subjects had idiopathic disease and 6 dysimmune etiology Fractional anisotropy at C3–C4 level and average fractional anisotropy were significantly different between patients and healthy controls p 0001 and 0001 and between patients and diabetic subjects p = 0019 and 0027 Average fractional anisotropy presented an area under the curve of 0838 Moreover it had higher sensitivity than visual detection of the hyperintense signal 086 vs 054 particularly for patients with short disease durationDTIbased analysis enables in vivo detection of posterior column damage in sensory neuronopathy patients and is a useful diagnostic test for this condition It also helps the differential diagnosis between sensory neuronopathy and distal polyneuropathiesWe thank Brunno Machado de Campos Benílton de Sá Carvalho and biomedical technicians for their help in MRI discussions statistical analysis and data acquisition respectively We thank FAPESP Sao Paulo Research Foundation Grants 2013/017667 2013/075593 – Brazilian governmental agency for financial supportWe declare that all human studies have been approved by the research ethics committee of the School of Medical Sciences UNICAMP and have therefore been performed in accordance with the ethical standards laid down in the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki and its later amendments We declare that all patients gave informed consent prior to inclusion in this study
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