Yong Zhang1, Aihong Yu1, Yu Zhang2, Chao Wang3, Yangyang Duan Mu1, Chenxin Zhang1, Zhuang Zhou4, Wei Zhao1, Ling Wang1, and Xiaoguang Cheng1
1radiology, Beijing Jishuitan hospital, Beijing, China, People's Republic of, 2radiology, Philips Healthcare, Beijing, China, Beijing, China, People's Republic of, 3Beijing Institute of Traumatology and Orthopedics, Beijing, China, People's Republic of, 4Orthopedics, The Third Hospital of Hebei Medical University, Beijing, China, People's Republic of
This study aimed to evaluate the reliability of fat content measurement of lumbar vertebrae marrow and lumbar paraspinal muscle using an multi-echo 3D DIXON method. A total of 31 volunteers (15 males and 16 females) were included in this study and underwent liver mDIXON-quant MR imaging by an radiologist and this examinations were repeated by another radiologist within 2 weeks. The radiologists measured fat content of L3, psoas (PS), erector spinae (ES), and multifidus (MF) muscles on the central L3 axial MR images on ISP V7 workstation and after 2 weeks they repeated the same measurements. Our results showed mean fat content of L3, PS, ES, MF was 38.19%, 3.52%, 3.48%, 3.53% for males and 32.11%, 3.40%, 7.06%, 7.14% for females. The repeatability and reproducibility of measurement of fat content, T2* and R2* of L3, PS, ES, MF was high (the intra-observer ICC and inter-observer ICC all>0.9). Fat content measurement of lumbar vertebrae marrow and lumbar paraspinal muscle using mDIXON-quant imaging has high reliability and be potentially used in clinical practice.
