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Published on: March 14, 2013
Validity of SyMRI for Assessment of the Neonatal Brain
Victor Schmidbauer1, Gudrun Geisl1, Mariana Cardoso Diogo1
1Department of Biomedical Imaging and Image-guided Therapy, Medical University of Vienna, Währinger Gürtel 18-20, 1090, Vienna, Austria.
Purpose:
The purpose of this study was to assess the diagnostic accuracy of T1-weighted and T2-weighted contrasts generated by the MR data postprocessing software SyMRI (Synthetic MR AB, Linköping, Sweden) for neonatal brain imaging.
Methods:
In this study 36 cases of neonatal MRI were retrospectively collected, which included T1-weighted and T2-weighted sequences as well as multi-dynamic multi-echo (MDME) sequences. Of the 36 neonates 32 were included in this study and 4 neuroradiologists independently assessed neonatal brain examinations on the basis of conventional and SyMRI-generated T1-weighted and T2-weighted contrasts, in order to determine the presence or absence of lesions. The sensitivity and specificity of both methods were calculated and compared.
Results:
Compared to conventionally acquired T1 and T2-weighted images, SyMRI-generated contrasts showed a lower sensitivity but a higher specificity (SyMRI sensitivity 0.88, confidence interval (CI): 0.72-0.95; specificity 1, CI: 0.89-1/conventional MRI: sensitivity: 0.94, CI: 0.80-0.98; specificity: 0.94, CI: 0.80-0.98).
Conclusion:
The T1-weighted and T2-weighted images generated by SyMRI showed a diagnostic accuracy comparable to that of conventionally acquired contrasts. In addition to semiquantitative imaging data, SyMRI provides diagnostic images and leads to a more efficient use of available imaging time in neonatal brain MRI.
