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This article provides an evaluation of the diagnostic performance of susceptibility-weighted magnetic resonance imaging (SW-MRI) in comparison to conventional MRI sequences for the evaluation of osseous cervical foraminal stenosis in spinal radiculopathy using computed tomography (CT) as a reference standard. The study was conducted prospectively on 21 patients with suspected radiculopathy of the cervical spine, and results showed that SW-MRI achieved a sensitivity of 96.6% and specificity of 99.5%. In comparison, conventional T1-weighted MRI sequences achieved a sensitivity and specificity of 43.1% and 100%, respectively; while T2-weighted MRI sequences achieved a sensitivity and specificity of 65.5% and 99.1%, respectively. The overall detection rate was significantly higher on SW-MRI than other sequences, with no significant difference in severity scoring compared to CT scans; however, both T1- and T2-weighted MRI underestimated the degree of foraminal stenosis observed on CT scans.

The article is generally trustworthy due to its prospective design which allows more accurate assessment than retrospective studies; however, it should be noted that the sample size is relatively small at 21 patients which may limit generalizability to larger populations or different contexts or settings where different results may be obtained due to differences in patient characteristics or other factors such as availability or access to technology or resources used in this study such as CT scans or MRIs which may not be available everywhere or accessible by all patients equally due to cost considerations or other factors such as geographical location or health insurance coverage restrictions etc., thus limiting its applicability outside this particular context where it was conducted in terms of replicating similar results elsewhere under different conditions or circumstances which could lead to different outcomes than those reported here due to these potential differences between contexts/settings/populations etc.. Additionally, there is no mention made about potential risks associated with exposure to radiation from CT scans which should have been noted given that this was used as a reference standard against which other imaging techniques were compared; thus making it important to consider any potential risks associated with radiation exposure when deciding whether this technique should be used over others where radiation exposure is not involved such as MRIs etc.. Furthermore, there is also no mention made about possible biases related to patient selection criteria which could have impacted results if certain types/groups/categories/subgroups etc., were excluded from consideration based on certain criteria such as age groupings etc., thus potentially skewing results towards one particular group over another depending on what criteria were used when selecting participants for inclusion into this study which could have impacted results if certain groups were excluded from consideration based on these criteria thus leading to potential bias related issues that should have been addressed prior to conducting this study so that any potential biases related issues can be avoided when interpreting results obtained from this study since they may not necessarily reflect true underlying population level trends but rather just those observed within this particular sample studied here due solely to selection criteria used when selecting participants included into this study rather than reflecting true underlying population level trends across all groups/categories/subgroups etc., included into consideration when conducting analyses related to these findings reported here since only those selected based on certain