Cervical Cord to Canal Diameter Ratio

Cervical epidural block could cause spinal cord injury if the epidural needle is over-inserted and punctures the spinal cord. Investigators retrospectively evaluated the imaging data of 100 patients (50 men and 50 women) who underwent both cervical computed tomography (CT) and cervical magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) at our hospital. Investigators measured the diameters of the spinal canal and spinal cord from the 3rd cervical vertebra to the 1st thoracic vertebra (T1) at each level by using the patients' cervical CT and MR images. The spinal cord and spinal canal diameters were measured in the transverse plane of cervical MR and CT images, respectively.