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Evaluation of peripheral nerve acute crush injury in rabbits: comparison among diffusion kurtosis imaging, diffusion tensor imaging and electromyography

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Abstract

Objective

Diffusion kurtosis imaging (DKI) has been proven to provide additional value for assessing many central nervous system diseases compared with conventional diffusion tensor imaging (DTI); however, whether it has the same value in peripheral nerve injury is unclear. This study aimed to investigate the performance of DKI, DTI, and electromyography (EMG) in evaluating peripheral nerve crush injury (PNCI) in rabbits.

Materials and methods

A total of 27 New Zealand white rabbits were selected to establish a PNCI model. Longitudinal DTI, DKI, and EMG were evaluated before surgery and 1 day, 3 days, 1 week, 2 weeks, 4 weeks, 6 weeks, and 8 weeks after surgery. At each time point, two rabbits were randomly selected for pathological examination.

Results

The results showed that fractional anisotropy (FA) derived from both DKI and DTI demonstrated a significant difference between injured and control nerves at all time points (all P < 0.005) mean kurtosis of the injured nerve was lower than that on the control side after 2–8 weeks (all P < 0.05). No statistically significant difference was found in radial kurtosis, axial kurtosis, and apparent diffusion coefficient at almost every time point. The difference in compound muscle action potential (CMAP) of the bilateral gastrocnemius at each time point was statistically significant (all P < 0.001).

Conclusions

CMAP was a sensitive and reliable method to assess acute PNCI without being affected by perineural edema. DKI may not be superior to DTI in evaluating peripheral nerves, DTI with a shorter scanning time was preferred as an effective choice for evaluating acute peripheral nerve traumatic injury.

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Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Number: 81171800.) and Science and technology planning project of Guangdong Province (Grant Number: 2016A020215168.)

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Author notes

  1. Qi Wan and Yudong Yu contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Radiology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University, Yanjiangxilu No. 151, Guangzhou, 510120, China

    Qi Wan, Yudong Yu, Yingying Bao, Jianfeng Hu, Peng Wang, Yu Peng, Xiaoying Xia, Jieqiong Liu, Xiaobin Xie & Xinchun Li

  2. Department of Radiology, Huizhou Central People’s Hospital, Huizhou, China

    Yudong Yu

  3. GE Healthcare, Guangzhou, China

    Yuting Liao

Authors
  1. Qi Wan
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  2. Yudong Yu
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  3. Yingying Bao
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  4. Jianfeng Hu
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  5. Peng Wang
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  6. Yu Peng
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  7. Xiaoying Xia
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  9. Jieqiong Liu
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  10. Xiaobin Xie
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  11. Xinchun Li
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Contributions

The study was conceived and designed by QW and XL; material preparation and data collection were performed by YY, YB, JH, PW, YP, and XX; data analysis and interpretation were performed by YY, QW, YL, and JL; the first draft of the manuscript was written by QW and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Xinchun Li.

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The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.

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All animals were used in accordance with the procedures of the Health Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals and approved by the Institutional Animal Use and Care Committee.

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Wan, Q., Yu, Y., Bao, Y. et al. Evaluation of peripheral nerve acute crush injury in rabbits: comparison among diffusion kurtosis imaging, diffusion tensor imaging and electromyography. Magn Reson Mater Phy 35, 291–299 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10334-021-00952-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10334-021-00952-x

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