Diffusion tensor imaging coefficients correlate with electrophysiological recordings in intramedullary neoplasms of the human cervical spinal cord

Background: There is an increasing application of diffusion-weighted imaging (DTI) in the planning of neurosurgical treatment of brain tumors. During the last years, several MRI techniques have been proposed for the characterization of the water molecular diffusion in the spinal cord. However, due to technical challenges the validity of DTI in spinal cord disorders is still controversial. In the present study, DTI parameters were correlated to electrophysiological findings before and after microsurgical resection of intramedullary neoplasms of the human cervical spinal cord. Methods: Four patients (1 female, mea…