Diseases of the Spinal Cord

Spinal cord imaging has significantly benefited from a variety of new MR imaging methods. Recent decades have also witnessed fundamental progress in understanding of the pathophysiology of spinal cord diseases, treatment options, neurosurgical procedures, and endovascular treatments. This textbook provides an interdisciplinary overview of the new imaging modalities, identifies clues for MR imaging diagnosis and differential diagnosis and describes the anatomical background required to understand spinal cord diseases. Important neurological symptoms are highlighted, and modern treatment options for different diseases are fully explained and discussed. High-quality illustrations, including numerous images, are provided for all important spinal cord diseases, documenting relevant anatomical details, special MR imaging methods, differential diagnoses and possible treatment procedures.

Overview of new modalities for imaging of the spinal cord

Part 1 Introduction.- Part 2 Anatomy of the spine and spinal cord.- Anatomy of spinal canal.- Structures of the spinal canal.- Part 3 Imaging methods.- Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) Methods.- Advanced Imaging methods.- CSF Dynamics.- MR myelography.- Myelography and post-myelographic CT.- Part 4 Malformations of the spine.- Spinal malformations .- Part 5 Diseases of extramedullary origin.- Degenerative diseases.- Extramedullary space-occupying pathologies.- Spinal trauma.- Meningeal disorders.- Part 6 Diseases of the spinal cord.- Pathophysiological regards.- Inflammation of the spinal cord.- Metabolic-toxic diseases.- Gray matter diseases of the spinal cord.- Intramedullary Spinal Cord Tumors.- Vascular diseases of the spine and spinal cord.- Spinal cord infarction.