| Summary: | Objective To delineate imaging findings using an imaging platform and investigate the correlation between MRI characteristics of spinal cord atrophy and clinical diagnosis in children with spinal cord injury （SCI）. Methods Imaging data of 150 children with SCI admitted to Beijing Bo'ai Hospital, China Rehabilitation Research Center, from January, 2002 to March, 2024 were collected and imported into the imaging platform. The anteroposterior and transverse diameters of the middle part of the spinal cord at the cross-section with the most severe atrophy were measured, and the relevant indicators of the previous normal spinal cord segment were measured as controls; the radiomic features were extracted. Clinical data of the children including gender, age, cause of injury, sensory level, motor level, spinal cord injury level, injury severity and disease course were collected. Results Spinal cord atrophy was identified in 81 cases （54%）, among which 78 cases （96%） were American Spinal Injury Association Impairment Scale （AIS） grade A and 3 cases （4%） were AIS grade C. The upper boundary of the spinal cord atrophy site strongly correlated with the injury level, motor level and sensory level （r ＞ 0.8, P ＜0.001）. Conclusion More than half of children with SCI may develop secondary spinal cord atrophy, the vast majority of whom suffer from complete spinal cord injury; the upper boundary of spinal cord atrophy is correlated with the injury level.
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