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MRI of the Spine: Image Quality and Normal–Neoplastic Bone Marrow Contrast at 3 T Versus 1.5 T

¹ Department of Radiology, University of California, San Francisco, 400 Parnassus Ave., A-367, Box 0628, San Francisco, CA 94143-0628.
² Department of Radiology, The Third Hospital of Hebei Medical University, Shijiazhuang, China.

OBJECTIVE. The objectives of our study were to compare image quality of the spine and visualization of spine abnormalities at 3 T and 1.5 T as well as to evaluate differences in quantitative assessment of normal and neoplastic vertebral bone marrow.

MATERIALS AND METHODS. One hundred nine MR examinations of the spine were performed at 1.5 T and 3 T in the same patients within a time interval of less than 3 months. Visualization of anatomic and pathologic structures was analyzed by two radiologists. Normal and pathologic bone marrow was assessed on T1-weighted fast spin-echo (FSE) sequences. The signal intensity contrast of neoplastic bone marrow versus normal vertebral bone marrow was measured at 1.5 T versus 3 T. Sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy with 95% CIs were computed to assess the performance of muscle and disk as standards to differentiate between neoplastic and normal bone marrow on T1-weighted sequences at 1.5 T and 3 T.

RESULTS. For all anatomic structures evaluated, image quality was rated significantly higher at 3 T than at 1.5 T, with 71.6% of the studies overall being superior at 3 T. The contrast between normal and pathologic bone marrow was significantly larger at 3 T (mean ± SD, 0.33 ± 0.13) than at 1.5 T (0.27 ± 0.11). The highest accuracy was found using muscle signal at 3 T to differentiate between normal and pathologic bone marrow.

CONCLUSION. The use of 3-T MRI improves visualization of anatomic structures in the spine over 1.5-T MRI. As an internal standard on T1-weighted FSE images, skeletal muscle can be used to differentiate between infiltrative and normal bone marrow with higher accuracy at 3 T than at 1.5 T.

Keywords: 1.5 T • 3 T • bone marrow • MRI techniques • spine

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