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Abstract #2425

Gradient non-linearity effects on upper cervical cord area measurement from MPRAGE brain MRI acquisitions

Nico Papinutto1, Rohit Bakshi2, Peter A Calabresi3, Eduardo Caverzasi1,4, Todd Constable5, Gina Kirkish1, Govind Nair6, Jiwon Oh3,7, Daniel Pelletier8, Dzung L Pham9, Daniel S Reich6, William Rooney10, Snehashis Roy9, Daniel Schwartz10, Russell T Shinohara11, Nancy L Sicotte12, William A Stern1, Ian Tagge10, Shahamat Tauhid2, Subhash Tummala2, and Roland G Henry1,13

1Department of Neurology, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, United States, 2Department of Neurology, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, United States, 3Department of Neurology, The Johns Hopkins University, United States, 4Department of Brain and Behavioral Science, Univeristy of Pavia, Italy, 5Yale University, School of Medicine, United States, 6Translational Neuroradiology Section, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, United States, 7Department of Neurology, University of Toronto, Canada, 8Department of Neurology, University of Southern California, United States, 9Center for Neuroscience and Regenerative Medicine, Henry M. Jackson Foundation, United States, 10Advanced Imaging Research Center, Oregon Health & Science University, United States, 11Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, United States, 12Department of Neurology, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, United States, 13Department of Radiology, University of California San Francisco, United States

Upper cervical cord area (UCCA) is strongly associated with physical disability in patients with multiple sclerosis, particularly in progressive stages of disease. Standard brain high-resolution 3D T1-weighted acquisitions that include the upper cervical cord can be used to provide estimates of UCCA. Depending on subject positioning in the scanner, gradient non-linearity can introduce up to 10% variability in UCCA measurements from volumetric brain MPRAGE scans. In planning a study, use of 3D correction methods provided by the scanner vendors seems optimal. Alternatively, to retrospectively correct data, we propose methods based on a phantom acquisition or normalization with vertebral body diameters.

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