CT Cervical Spine - Video Lesson

Hey everybody, welcome back. This lesson is about the cervical spine as seen in CT imaging. We'll start in the axial plane. This is an axial view of the cervical spine. The bones demonstrate a high degree of detail because this image was created with the bone algorithm. The purpose of that algorithm is to increase spatial resolution, although it does increase image noise. These images are displayed in the traditional bone window. That's about two thousand five hundred window width and six hundred window level. This window enhances visibility of the bone and suppresses the visibility of soft tissue. This slice is at the very top of the cervical spine, just below the level of the occipital bone. We can see the anterior arch of C1, where it articulates with the dens or odontoid process of C2. Notice that both C1 and C2 are atypical vertebrae. C1 does not have a vertebral body. C2 has this articular process called the dens, which no other vertebrae have. In the center of the vertebrae, we can see this large opening, which is the