1. Case 1: 8-month-old boy.
Case 1: 8-month-old boy. A and B, Sagittal SE T1-weighted MR image (500/14/2) (A) and 3-mm-thick reformatted sagittal MR image obtained from a 3D gradient-echo sequence (20/7/1) with 30° flip angle (80 original 1-mm-thick partitions) (B) at age 9 years. In this case the malformation involves the upper lumbar segment. The degree of kyphosis is moderate, and there is no disconnection of the spinal canal. The upper cord (open arrow, A) is continuous with a hypoplastic cord segment (arrowheads, A). Below, the lower cord (solid arrow, A) is bulky and low-lying. The abrupt change in caliber of the spinal cord may be seen more easily on the reformatted image (arrowheads, B).fig 5.  Case 5: 5-month-old boy with SSD involving the lumbosacral spine. Sagittal SE T1-weighted (600/20/4) MR image at age 2 years shows marked kyphosis in the lumbosacral spine with absent or undetermined vertebrae. The spinal cord is hypoplastic and blends with the filum terminale, surrounding the dysgenetic vertebral bodies and apparently tethering to the sacrum (arrowheads). Because the dysgenesis involves the lowermost portion of the neural plate, there cannot be a lower cord segment; in fact, this particular case illustrates an overlap between SSD and CRS. There is concurrent hydromyelia in the thoracic spinal cord (arrows).
Paolo Tortori-Donati et al. AJNR Am J Neuroradiol 1999;20:
©1999 by American Society of Neuroradiology