Yasuhiko Terada1, Saki Kono1, Daiki Tamada1, Tomomi Uchiumi1, Katsumi Kose1, Ryo Miyagi2, Eiko Yamabe2, Hiroshi Yoshioka2
1Institute of Applied Physics, University of Tsukuba, Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan; 2Department of Radiological Sciences, University of California Irvine, Irvine, CA, United States
To measure childfs skeletal age, which is a standard measure of childfs growth status, an open compact MRI system was optimized for childfs hand imaging. Left hands of 93 healthy children volunteers were imaged using a 3D coherent gradient-echo sequence. Despite the limited measurement time (2 min 44 s), each bone was well resolved in the MRI images, revealing the validity of the system. Furthermore, segmented volume of carpal bones highly correlates with skeletal age (r = 0.904 for boys and 0.917 for girls). This reveals that the bone volume is a new, good indicator of childfs maturity.