Hi Boz.
I can interpret your MRI report, but not fully I’m afraid. Here you go:
“ventricular configuration normal”: the ventricles are the lakes of CSF in the brain. The structure of yours was normal.
“no midline shift”: the line down the middle of the two halves of your brain is straight, i.e. normal.
“no mass effect”: nothing that is taking up space in the brain (e.g. a tumour).
“several small foci of increased white matter signal are shown in both hemispheres best appreciated on the coronal flair images”: several very small round spots of damage in the white matter of both halves of your brain (the outer layer of the brain is gray matter where all the processing, storage, “thinking”, etc is done; inside that is white matter which does the communicating between different bits of gray matter). Coronal is one of the directions that images can be taken. Coronal is slices of the brain taken from top to bottom through both eyes, and then from the front of the head to the back (or vice versa). FLAIR is a type of scan that shows up lesions particularly well.
“although not spescific”: not specific basically means not pointing towards a particular condition.
“foci of ischaemic gliosis” is where I struggle a bit, sorry. Foci means small spots. Gliosis is basically a repair process, like scarring. Ischaemic means to do with blood supply. I think ischaemic gliosis has to do with things like strokes, but stroke lesions are not normally so small, so perhaps it’s more to do with TIA (transient ischaemic attacks) which are small strokes? I really could be talking rubbish here though!
“no mass or other lesion shown”: no tumours or other damage
“brain stem and cerebellum appear normal”: the brain stem is at the top of the spinal cord; the cerebellum is the roundish, wrinkly bit behind the brain stem and underneath the big bit of the brain (the cerebrum, which everyone thinks of as the brain) - yours are fine.
“multiple foci of increased signal in the white matter biaterally.these are takrn to represent foci of ischaemic gliosis but the differential diagnosis would include demylation.”: several small spots in both sides of the brain’s white matter are assumed to be ischaemic gliosis, but it’s possible that it could be demyelination (which is the process which causes the damage in MS, and other demyelinating conditions).
“spine cervical.sagittal t1/t2 with axial t2 sections obtained.”: this is just what scans were done; sagittal and axial are directions the images were taken (coronal is the third direction) and T1 and T2 are types of scan.
“normal vertebral alignment.neural canal appears of adequate size.craniocervical juntion is normal.”: your neck bones are where they should be, the space for the spinal cord isn’t too narrow, where the brain and the neck meet is fine.
“there is a shallow disc protusion favouring the left side at c6/7.this encroaches upon but does not compress the cord and the exit foramina appear adequate.”: the bit between the C6 & C7 vertebrae has bulged out so that it touches the spinal cord, but it hasn’t changed its shape and hasn’t affected where the nerves come off the cord. (This would suggest that it wouldn’t cause neurological symptoms.)
“there is a similar but lessprominant disc protusion at c5/6 in the midline.”: you have another one of these a bit higher up your neck
“endplate osteophytes are shown at c4/5.no compressve lesion is identified.”: you some bony spurs (basically little sticky out bits of bone where they shouldn’t be) a bit higher up still. Despite all this, nothing is pressing on the spinal cord.
“conclusion: degenerative disc decease maximal between c5 and 7 but no compressive lesion seen.”: your neck has a lot of wear and tear which is worst between the C5 and C7 vertebrae (low in the neck), but nothing is pressing on the spinal cord.
Please remember that I am not a neuro or even a medic. With this in mind, I do not believe that you should just be discharged with these MRI results. I think the gliosis needs to be properly investigated and I think you should see someone about your spinal degeneration too. It may not be MS, but it’s not nothing.
Hth!
Karen x
