Figure 1. MR image in a 66-year-old man (group 2 patient) with chronic back pain. The midsagittal plane of the spine was used to evaluate the blood perfusion of vertebral bodies with a section thickness of 10 mm. Imaging parameters were 4/1.5; prepulse inversion time, 400 msec; flip angle, 15°; and acquisition matrix, 179 x 256. The ROI was defined by the black thin line, which covered the entire vertebral body starting from the subchondral bone inside the cortex. ROIs at three levels from T10 to L5 were randomly chosen for each patient before the signal intensity measurement was started.