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Measuring 3D Cochlear Duct Length on MRI: Is It Accurate and Reliable?
M B Eser1, B Atalay2, M B Dogan2
1From the Departments of Radiology (M.B.E., B.A., M.B.D., N.G.) bilgineser@hotmail.com.
Background And Purpose:
Prior studies have evaluated cochlear length using CT to select the most suitable cochlear implants and obtain patient-specific anatomy. This study aimed to test the accuracy and reliability of cochlear lateral wall length measurements using 3D MR imaging.
Materials And Methods:
Two observers measured the cochlear lateral wall length of 35 patients (21 men) with postlingual hearing loss using CT and MR imaging. The intraclass correlation coefficient (with 95% confidence intervals) was used to evaluate intraobserver and interobserver reliability for the 3D cochlear measurements.
Results:
The mean age of the participants was 39.85 (SD, 16.60) years. Observer 1 measured the mean lateral wall length as 41.52 (SD, 2.25) mm on CT and 41.44 (SD, 2.18) mm on MR imaging, with a mean difference of 0.08 mm (95% CI, -0.11 to 0.27 mm), while observer 2 measured the mean lateral wall length as 41.74 (SD, 2.69) mm on CT and 42.34 (SD, 2.53) mm on MR imaging, with a mean difference of -0.59 mm (95% CI, -1.00 to -0.20 mm). An intraclass correlation coefficient value of 0.90 (95% CI, 0.84-0.94) for CT and 0.69 (95% CI, 0.46-0.82) for MR imaging was obtained for the interobserver reliability for the full-turn cochlear lateral wall length.
Conclusions:
CT-based 3D cochlear measurements show excellent intraobserver and interobserver reliability, while MR imaging-based lateral wall length measurements have good-to-excellent intraobserver reliability and moderate interobserver reliability. These results corroborate the use of CT for 3D cochlear measurements as a reference method and demonstrate MR imaging to be an alternative acquisition technique with comparably reliable results.
