Evaluation of metastatic spinal disease with high-field STIR

The authors compared short TI inversion-recovery (STIR) images (13) with T1-weighted (11) balanced (eight), T2-weighted (seven), and gradient-echo (five) images in 11 patients who underwent 13 MR studies. Lesion conspicuity was always better with STIR than with gradient-echo sequences and was equivalent or better than all T2 sequences and all but one balanced sequence. Increased signal on STIR images was more specific for diagnosis of abnormal tissue than was decreased signal on T1 images because bone sclerosis may appear similar to metastasis with T1-weighting. Anatomic localization was better than on STIR sequences on two T1-weighted and one T2-weighted sequences because of the relatively poor signal-to-noise of normal structures and increased sensitivity to phase-shift artifacts with STIR