Abstract: Objective    To provide new imaging basis for the early diagnosis of common peroneal nerve and tibial neuropathy in the knee.    Methods    Sixty patients with normal knee of different ages and twenty hospitalized patients with unilateral Guillain Barre syndrome were selected, the regions of interest of different parts of common peroneal nerve and tibial nerve were divided at the workstation. The fractional anisotropy (FA) and apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) values were measured and generated tractography imaging.     Results    There was no significant difference in FA and ADC values of common peroneal nerve and tibial nerve in the left and right sides, different age stages and different parts of knee (P>0.05). The FA and ADC values of common peroneal nerve and tibial nerve were (0.65±0.05), (1.04±0.12)×10-3mm2/s and (0.63±0.04), (1.09±0.13)×10-3mm2/s respectively by consolidation. The FA and ADC values of common peroneal nerve and tibial nerve of the knee in the lesion group were (0.55±0.06), (1.26±0.19)×10-3mm2/s and (0.50±0.07), (1.36±0.18)×10-3mm2/s respectively, which was satistically different from the normal group (P<0.05). The FA values of common peroneal nerve and tibial nerve of the knee in the lesion group were lower than those in the normal group, while the ADC values were higher than those in the normal group.    Conclusions  Diffusion tensor imaging can early diagnose the common peroneal nerve and tibial nerve lesion of the knee, and tractography imaging can show the morphological changes of nerve fibers, so as to improve the diagnosis rate of common peroneal nerve and tibial nerve lesion of the knee.

Key words: Diffusion tensor imaging,  ,  , Knee,  ,  , Common peroneal nerve,  ,  , Tibial nerve, Tractography imaging,  ,  , Clinical application