Study on Imaging Characteristics and Value of MRI in Diagnosis of Traumatic Brachial Plexus Injury

Abstract

Surgical treatment and prognosis of brachial plexus tract injuries depend on the precise diagnosis of the root detachment from the spinal cord. Myelography, computed tomography (CT), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) have become the main radiological methods of preoperative diagnosis of cervical roots detachment. Most previous studies of CT myelography accuracy and MRI studies correlated radiological results with the results of extra-spinal brachial plexus surgeries. Surgical experience shows that in many cases extra-spinal data differ from intradural definitions. Therefore, only the correlation of the intradural surgical results will allow to estimate the actual accuracy of CT and MRI studies. This study analyzes image characteristics and MRI value in the diagnosis of traumatic brachial plexus injury. The research was conducted on 60 patients who were diagnosed and operated brachial plexus injury. Within this prospective study, cross-sectional description, comparing diagnosis of brachial plexus injury on 3 Tesla MRI imagine before surgery with postoperative diagnosis were applied. Improved respiratory compensation systems, new methods for suppressing artefacts and the use of special coils to improve the signal-to-noise ratio in high field MRI provide us with a more accurate assessment of the intradural roots images in the brachial plexus and injuries.