Quantitative Comparison of Bone-Selective MRI Techniques for Craniofacial Imaging

Risk of ionizing radiation from CT remains a concern for pediatric patients, such as craniosynostosis patients who may require multiple scans at a young age. We quantitatively compared three MRI methods for imaging the skull by scanning healthy adults using our solid-state bone-selective ultrashort echo subtraction sequence, along with zero echo time and gradient-echo sequences. We demonstrate the similarities among the 3D rendered bone segmentations in terms of Dice similarity coefficient and craniometric measurements across all imaging methods. Our UTE echo subtraction technique shows clear visualization of craniofacial structures near the bone-air boundaries and superior signal suppression of soft-tissues.