Ultrashort Echo Time MRI for Pediatric Patients with Craniofacial Abnormalities

Motivation: Ionizing radiation risk from CT remains a concern for pediatric patients with craniofacial abnormalities. Goal(s): Use high-resolution bone-selective MRI for cranial bone imaging and evaluate feasibility in pediatric patients. Approach: We quantitatively assessed a new echo-subtraction UTE sequence against clinical CT and another well-known MRI technique to assess their strengths and limitations. Results: The proposed UTE sequence had high agreement with CT among the 3D rendered bone segmentations in terms of Dice similarity coefficient and quantification of clinical craniometric measurements. Furthermore, the bone-selective MR images clearly depict thin bone structures with attenuation of both soft-tissues and air. Impact: Craniofacial imaging with the proposed ultrashort echo time sequence has high agreement with CT in pediatric patients. MRI can be a reliable non-ionizing and radiation-free modality for pediatric patients who are at increased risk of radiation malignancy.