Role of MRI Diffusion in Differentiation Between Various Vertebral Bone Marrow Pathological Lesions. .

Bone marrow lesions are common, and imaging findings are associated with various aetiologies, such as degenerative, infectious, traumatic, malignant, metabolic, and haematopoietic .

As compared to conventional radiography and computed tomography (CT), MRI is a better non-invasive imaging modality to evaluate vertebral bone marrow, due to better soft-tissue contrast as well as being non-ionising in nature .

Although conventional MRI is essential for anatomical visualization and lesion detection in bone marrow pathologies ,but it often insufficient in distinguishing different vertebral bone marrow lesions, due to overlapping imaging features and often due to coexistence of bone marrow oedema that can be caused by fractures, infection, and bone marrow hyperplasia, thus reducing the specificity of conventional sequences .

MRI diffusion provides complementary information about tissue microstructure and cellular .it exploits the translational mobility of water molecules to obtain information on the microscopic behaviour of the tissues.

On the other hand, apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) values provide quantitative measure of Brownian movement with low ADC values implying restricted diffusion and high values being a measure of free diffusion.