• G J Lycklama à Nijeholt, F Barkhof, J A Castelijns, J H van Waesberghe, J Valk, P J Jongen, and O R Hommes.
• Department of Diagnostic Radiology, Vrije Universiteit Hospital, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
• AJNR Am J Neuroradiol. 1996 Sep 1; 17 (8): 1533-8.

PurposeTo compare cardiac-triggered dual-echo spin-echo and magnetization transfer-prepared gradient-echo (MT-GE) MR imaging in the detection of multiple sclerosis (MS) lesions in the spinal cord.MethodsThe cervical spinal cord in 20 patients with MS and in nine healthy volunteers was examined with spin-echo and MT-GE MR imaging. Sagittal images were scored for number of lesions, certainty about lesions, image quality, and visual hindrance by artifacts in random order by two radiologists separately and in a blinded manner.ResultsIn one healthy volunteer, a lesion was seen on images obtained with both images. Lesion/cord contrast-to-noise ratio was equal on both the MT-GE and T2-weighted spin-echo images. MT-GE images showed better image quality and fewer artifacts than the spin-echo images did. The readers found approximately the same number of lesions. However, the number of definite lesions was higher for the spin-echo sequence than for the MT-GE sequence. One reader found 45 definite lesions with spin-echo and 34 definite lesions with MT-GE. For the other reader, these numbers were 37 (spin-echo) and 31 (MT-GE). On the spin-echo images, 90% of the patients were considered to have definite lesions; on the MT-GE images, the readers found definite lesions in 65% (reader 1) and in 70% (reader 2) of the patients.ConclusionImage quality was better with the MT-GE technique than with the spin-echo technique, and lesion/cord contrast-to-noise ratio on the MT-GE images was equal to that of T2-weighted spin-echo images. However, for detecting spinal cord MS lesions in the sagittal plane, the spin-echo images were preferred to the MT-GE images.

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