Article Review 9

Author’s Name

Paula Martin-Vaquero, Ronaldo C. Da Costa, and Wm Tod Drost 

Article Title

Comparison of Non-Contrast Computed Tomography and High-Field Magnetic Resonance Imaging in The Evaluation of Great Danes with Cervical Spondylo-myelopathy (2014)

Journal Name

Veterinary Radiology & Ultrasound

1) Bibliography

Martin-Vaquero, P., Costa, R. C., & Drost, W. T. (2014). Comparison Of Noncontrast Computed Tomography And High-Field Magnetic Resonance Imaging In The Evaluation Of Great Danes With Cervical Spondylomyelopathy. Veterinary Radiology & Ultrasound, 55(5), 496-505. doi:10.1111/vru.12148

2) Purpose of the Article

The purpose of this article was to determine the preoperative computed tomography (CT) myelogram imaging parameters in patients diagnosed with degenerative cervical myelopathy (DCM) that correlate with severity of DCM and predict postoperative patients’ functional outcome. 

3) Brief Description of Procedure and Findings/Results

This article summarizes that canine cervical spondylomyelopathy bears similarities with the human disease known as cervical spondylotic myelopathy, which is a chronic compressive myelopathy. In this study, non-contrast CT imaging was performed under sedation. Non-contrast CT was more superior than MR imaging at depicting the characteristics of the articular joints and predicting the presence and degree of cervical facet arthrosis. The CT studies were obtained without complications and all yielded good quality images. The overall inter-observer agreement values were higher for CT when compared to MR imaging for all the morphologic features evaluated. However, the inter-observer agreement values for these features were only slight to fair for CT and poor to slight for MR imaging, indicating a high degree of variability among observers.

4) Conclusions and Comments

The article concludes that the results of the study indicate that while different observers frequently agree on the main site of compression when using both non-contrast CT and high field MR imaging, there is considerable variation between imaging modalities and among observers when assessing articular process characteristics and foraminal stenosis. Computed tomography yielded more consistent results among observers in the evaluation of the cervical articular process joints. The discrepancies noted highlight the need to use caution when comparing image interpretations from multiple observers.

5) The opinion of the Article

I thought this article was somewhat easy to understand. It gave me a better understanding of the diagnostic sensitivity and observer agreement of non-contrast CT and MR imaging in the evaluation of osseous-associated cervical spondylomyelopathy in dogs and compare it with human CSM.