Objective To discuss the clinical value of whole spine magnetic resonance imaging (WSMRI) in practice of neurosurgical spinal surgery. Method A total of 70 cases examined using WSMRI between January 2015 and December 2016 were collected and analyzed retrospectively. Results All patients got clear images of WSMRI. Eighteen cases got important information, including spinal variation (1 case), multiple lesions (3 cases), combined lesions (6 cases) and large range multi-segmental lesions (8 cases), which were missed by single-segment MRI . Conclusions WSMRI can show all the spine, spinal cord and surrounding tissue in one image at one time. It has high clinical value because of its accurate positioning, comprehensiveness, time saving, and low rate of misdiagnosis and missed diagnosis.