Feasibility of Accelerated MRI in Temporomandibular Joints Using AI-assisted Compressed Sensing Technique

Motivation: Patients with temporomandibular joint (TMJ) disorders often cannot endure long MRI examination due to facial pain, thus necessitating accelerated MRI. Goal(s): To investigative the feasibility of AI-assisted compressed sensing (ACS) accelerated MRI technique in TMJ, and compare its performance with parallel imaging (PI) protocol and standard protocol. Approach: Forty-four participants with 88 TMJs were qualitatively and quantitatively evaluated. Diagnostic agreement of joint effusion and disc displacement were analyzed. Results: Overall image quality, SNR, and most structures visibility of ACS protocol were significantly higher than standard protocol, and similar to PI protocol. Diagnostic agreement was excellent with kappa values ranging from 0.81 to 1.00. Impact: This study demonstrated that ACS accelerated MRI is feasible in TMJ with reduced acquisition times, good image quality, and excellent diagnostic precision, which holds great promise in clinical practice and is especially helpful for patients with TMJ disorders.