Cervical Foraminal Stenosis: Volumetric MRI in Patients with Pathology
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Assessing Cervical Foraminal Stenosis: Volumetric MRI study in Patients with Cervical Brachialgia
IRAS ID
285222
Contact name
Simon Thomson
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust
ISRCTN Number
ISRCTN00038622
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 11 months, 31 days
Research summary
Currently standard MRI scans for trapped nerves in the neck are performed using sequential horizontal and vertical cuts through the spine separated by 2 or 3 millimetres. However, the nerves travel in a canal that is neither in the horizontal or vertical plane and the nerve itself is 2 to 3 mm in diameter. Consequently, nerve root compression can be rather poorly demonstrated on standard MRI sequences. Furthermore, the currently published scoring systems are not well validated and are therefore rarely used in clinical practice.
We will be using standard MRI techniques but at a different angle to image the nerves in the neck at high resolution as they leave the spine. The scans will be angled so that they cut exactly along and across the nerve canal. We are interested to see how this imaging matches the symptoms and whether different locations of compression better respond to one of the two main operations that can be performed.
Patients who are awaiting surgery to treat cervical brachialgia, will be recruited from pre-operative surgical waiting lists. They will be invited to participate in the trial. If they agree to participate, we will record some information (see section 12 for more detail) and perform an additional pre-operative MRI scan. Post-operatively we will assess symptoms 1 day and 6 weeks after the operation.
We will measure the width of the nerve canal on standard images and on the images angled along and across the nerve to see which technique is best at predicting the symptoms of nerve root compression and the response to surgical decompression.REC name
South East Scotland REC 02
REC reference
20/SS/0096
Date of REC Opinion
9 Oct 2020
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion