Improvement of the Diagnostic Performance of Facial Neuritis Using Contrast-Enhanced 3D T1 Black-Blood Imaging: Comparison with Contrast-Enhanced 3D T1-Spoiled Gradient-Echo Imaging

Abstract

This study aims to investigate the diagnostic ability of the contrast-enhanced 3D T1 black-blood fast spin-echo (T1 BB-FSE) sequence compared with the contrast-enhanced 3D T1-spoiled gradient-echo (CE-GRE) sequence in patients with facial neuritis. Forty-five patients with facial neuritis who underwent temporal bone MR imaging, including T1 BB-FSE and CE-GRE imaging, were examined. Two reviewers independently assessed the T1 BB-FSE and CE-GRE images in terms of diagnostic performance, and qualitative (diagnostic confidence and visual asymmetric enhancement) and quantitative analysis (contrast-enhancing lesion extent of the canalicular segment of the affected facial nerve (LEC) and the affected side-to-normal signal intensity ratio (rSI)). The AUCs of each reviewer, and the sensitivity and accuracy of T1 BB-FSE were significantly superior to those of CE-GRE (p p p < 0.05). The T1 BB-FSE sequence was significantly superior to the CE-GRE sequence, with more conspicuous lesion visualization in terms of both qualitative and quantitative aspects in patients with facial neuritis.

Keywords

• 3D T1 black-blood imaging
• facial neuritis
• diagnostic performance
• comparison study
• 3D T1-spoiled gradient-echo imaging