%0 Journal Article
%T Is 3T MR nerve-bone fusion imaging a viable alternative to MRI-CBCT to identify the relationship between the inferior alveolar nerve and mandibular third molar.
%A Huang H
%A Yan Y
%A Jiang D
%A Zhao X
%A Cao D
%A She D
%J Clin Oral Investig
%V 28
%N 5
%D 2024 Apr 17
%M 38630324
%F 3.606
%R 10.1007/s00784-024-05649-8
%X OBJECTIVE: To investigate the feasibility of MRI nerve-bone fusion imaging in assessing the relationship between inferior alveolar nerve (IAN) / mandibular canal (MC) and mandibular third molar (MTM) compared with MRI-CBCT fusion.
METHODS: The MRI nerve-bone fusion and MRI-CBCT fusion imaging were performed in 20 subjects with 37 MTMs. The Hausdorff distance (HD) value and dice similarity coefficient (DSC) was calculated. The relationship between IAN/MC and MTM roots, inflammatory, and fusion patterns were compared between these two fused images. The reliability was assessed using a weighted κ statistic.
RESULTS: The mean HD and DSC ranged from 0.62 ~ 1.35 and 0.83 ~ 0.88 for MRI nerve-bone fusion, 0.98 ~ 1.50 and 0.76 ~ 0.83 for MRI-CBCT fusion. MR nerve-bone fusion had considerable reproducibility compared to MRI-CBCT fusion in relation classification (MR nerve-bone fusion κ = 0.694, MRI-CBCT fusion κ = 0.644), direct contact (MR nerve-bone fusion κ = 0.729, MRI-CBCT fusion κ = 0.720), and moderate to good agreement for inflammation detection (MR nerve-bone fusion κ = 0.603, MRI-CBCT fusion κ = 0.532, average). The MR nerve-bone fusion imaging showed a lower ratio of larger pattern compared to MR-CBCT fusion (16.2% VS 27.3% in the molar region, and 2.7% VS 5.4% in the retromolar region). And the average time spent on MR nerve-bone fusion and MRI-CBCT fusion was 1 min and 3 min, respectively.
CONCLUSIONS: Both MR nerve-bone fusion and MRI-CBCT fusion exhibited good consistency in evaluating the spatial relationship between IAN/MC and MTM, fusion effect, and inflammation detection.
CONCLUSIONS: MR nerve-bone fusion imaging can be a preoperative one-stop radiation-free examination for patients at high risk for MTM surgery.