Comparison of inversion recovery fast spin-echo (FSE) with T2-weighted fat-saturated FSE and T1-weighted MR imaging in bone marrow lesion detection.

OBJECTIVE: To prospectively compare inversion recovery (IR) fast spin-echo (FSE) with T1-weighted spin-echo (SE) and T2-weighted chemical-shift fat-saturated (FS) FSE magnetic resonance sequences in the detection of bone marrow abnormality.

DESIGN: Twenty-nine sets of T1-weighted SE [400-640/10-20 (TR/TE)], T2-weighted FS-FSE [2400-3800/91-112/8 (TR/TE/ETL), and IR-FSE [3700-6000/12-14/170/8 (TR/TE/T1/ETL)] images were acquired with a 1.5-T magnet in 27 patients with bone marrow lesions. The visibility, margination, and extent of 41 lesions, image quality, contrast, and artifacts were qualitatively and quantitatively compared.

RESULTS: The lesions were more conspicuous on the IR-FSE than on the T1-weighted SE and T2-weighed FS-FSE images. The extent of lesions was similar for all three sequences. Image quality was better and there were fewer motion artifacts on the T1-weighted images. The mean lesion contrasted-to-noise ratio was significantly higher on the T1-weighted images (p < 0.05).

CONCLUSION: The IR-FSE sequence is highly sensitive for detecting bone marrow pathology, with scan time comparable to the T1-weighted SE and T2-weighted FS-FSE sequences.