Preliminary experience with black bone magnetic resonance imaging for morphometry of the mandible and visualisation of the facial skeleton

摘要

Abstract Background Children with orofacial deformity may require repeated imaging of the facial skeleton.Objective To test the feasibility and accuracy of “black bone” magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) for assessing facial deformity in children.Materials and methods Three-dimensional (3-D) black bone gradient echo sequences (flip angle 5°, submillimetre spatial resolution) from 10 children (median age: 13?years, range: 2–16?years), who underwent MRI of the temporomandibular joints, were evaluated with multiplanar reconstruction and 3-D rendering tools. Intra- and inter-reader agreement was investigated for measuring the height of the mandibular ramus and condyle, basal length of the mandible, gonion angle and mandibular inclination angle by intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) and Bland–Altman analysis. Absolute percentage error was calculated with the average of all measurements serving as reference.Results Sixty linear and 40 angle measurements were obtained on reformatted multiplanar black bone images with excellent inter-reader agreement (ICC?>?0.99, agreement bias?