Diffusion-weighted Imaging of Acute Vertebral Compressions: Specific Diagnosis of Benign Versus Malignant Pathologic Fractures

publish their second major article showing the high accuracy of MR diffusion-weighted scanning in discriminating acute benign from malignant path-ologic vertebral compression fractures. The differ-entiation between benign and malignant compres-sion fractures of the spine is a common neuroimaging task with important clinical impact. A large percentage of osseous lesions in patients with metastatic malignancies occur in the spine, and it is a critical site for pathologic fractures. Be-nign osteoporotic and traumatic compression frac-tures are also extremely common, especially in el-derly patients, patients with chronic metabolic and nutritional deficiencies, and patients with traumatic injuries to the spinal axis. It is important to remem