Whole spinal cord MRI as a routine screening examination in multiple sclerosis – use of parallel imaging

Introduction: Although functionally important, the spinal cord (SC) is not part of routine MRI examinations in MS patients. Routine assessment in the sagittal plane allows fairly quick reference, but for the detailed visualisation of pathology a transverse view is commonly used. Multi-array coils and parallel imaging provide new opportunities to examine the entire SC in the transverse plane. We were interested in the sensitivity and potential gain of fast whole SC MRI when combining high resolution, high sensitivity sagittal and transverse MRI. Methods: A large cohort of 256 MS patients (178 women, 78 men, 24–74…