Spinal Level Identification

 

In this Hologic spine scan the spinal levels are incorrectly designated.

This is the correction of the spine DXA scan with the spinal levels correctly identied. Notice the difference in the result. The levels containing hardware are excluded from the global region of interest.

Case Description:

The spine level labels are wrong in the first image and corrected in the second image. It makes a difference in analysis related to the normative database to correctly identify and designate spinal levels.

Credit:

Sarah L Morgan, MD, RD, CCD, The University of Alabama at Birmingham

References:

• Choplin, R.H., L. Lenchik, and S. Wuertzer, A practical approach to interpretation of Dual-Energy X-ray Absorptiometry (DXA) for assessment of bone density. . Curr Radiol Rep 2014. 2(48).
• Lewiecki, E.M. and N.E. Lane, Common mistakes in the clinical use of bone mineral density testing. Nat Clin Pract Rheumatol, 2008. 4(12): p. 667-74.
• Guan, W., et al., Lumbar Vertebrae Morphological Analysis and an Additional Approach for Vertebrae Identification in Lumbar Spine DXA Images. J Clin Densitom, 2018.
• Sarathi, V., C.V. Rakesh, and S. Tirupati, Effect of T12 Mislabeling as L1 on the Diagnosis of Low BMD at Lumbar Spine. J Clin Densitom, 2020.