Increased Diagnostic Accuracy of Post-Contrast MR 3D-STIR for Brachial Plexus Injury
Journal
Journal of Medical Imaging and Health Informatics
Journal Volume
6
Journal Issue
7
Pages
1767-1771
Date Issued
2016
Author(s)
Abstract
This study aimed to compare the diagnostic accuracy of conventional MRI and pre-and post-contrast 3D T2-weighted short tau inversion recovery (3D-T2WI-STIR) pulse sequence methods for brachial plexus injury. A total of 48 patients diagnosed with brachial plexus injury participated in our study. Images were obtained via 3.0 Tesla MR system with conventional MRI and pre-and post-contrast 3D-T2WI-STIR pulse sequence to diagnose brachial injury. For qualitative analysis, the sensitivity, specificity and accuracy of the methods were assessed by two different radiologists. The chi-square test was employed to determine the significance of differences in the rates of detecting brachial plexus injury. The sensitivity values for brachial plexus injury were 23.7%, 68.4% and 90.8% using conventional MRI, pre-contrast 3D-T2WI-STIR sequence and post-contrast 3D-T2WI-STIR sequence methods, respectively (P < 0.05). The specificity values for brachial plexus injury were 65.0%, 75.0% and 100.0% using conventional MRI, pre-contrast 3D-T2WI-STIR and post-contrast 3DT2WI-STIR sequence methods, respectively (P < 0.05). The accuracy values for brachial plexus injury were 32.3%, 69.8% and 92.7% using conventional MRI, pre-contrast 3D-T2WI-STIR and post-contrast 3D-T2WI-STIR sequence methods, respectively (P < 0.05). The results in our study showed that post-contrast 3D-T2WI-STIR pulse sequence increased accuracy by more than 60.4% and 22.9% compared with conventional MRI and pre-contrast 3D-T2WI-STIR sequence, respectively. Therefore, post-contrast 3D-T2WI-STIR sequence could effectively improve the diagnosis rate (92.7%) of brachial plexus injury.
Type
journal article