Magnetic Resonance Imaging Features of Suspected Acute Spinal Cord Infarction in Two Cats

Spinal cord infarction is becoming recognized as an important cause of acute myelopathy in cats. Although the definitive diagnosis is confirmed through postmortem histopathologic examination, MR imaging features provide valuable informations for the diagnosis of spinal cord infarction. The aim of this report is to describe MR findings of acute spinal cord infarction in two cats and to evaluate usefulness of low field MRI (0.3Tesla) as a potential diagnostic tool of acute spinal cord infarction. A cat (unknown age, neutered male mixed breed cat) was referred one day after the acute onset of non-ambulatory spastic tetraparesis and the other cat (a 9-year-old, neutered female domestic short hair cat) was presented due to the acute onset of non-ambulatory paraparesis and one day later paraplegia. The lesions of the MR images were shown on the spinal cord parenchyma over C2 to C6 in case 1 and L2 to L5 in case 2. The MR images in these two cases were characterized by focal intramedullary lesions, mainly involving grey matter which were hyperintense T2 weighted and FLAIR images and hyperintense on DWI and hypointense on ADC map. The MR findings in both cases were highly suggestive of acute spinal cord infarctions, based upon previous reported small animal cases and human cases. In conclusion, based on MR features, together with the history and clinical examination findings, MRI modality can be used as an antemortem tool for the diagnosis of acute spinal cord infarction in cats.