Reliability of measuring the fat content of the lumbar vertebral marrow and paraspinal muscles using MRI mDIXON-Quant sequence

Özet

PURPOSEWe aimed to assess the reliability of measuring the fat content of the lumbar vertebral marrowand the paraspinal muscles using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) mDIXON-Quant sequence.METHODSThirty-one healthy volunteers were included. All participants underwent liver mDIXON-Quantimaging on a 3.0 T Philips MRI scanner by observer A. Within two weeks, observer B repeated thescan. After the examination, each observer independently measured the fat content of the thirdlumbar vertebra (L3), and the psoas (PS), erector spinae (ES), and multifidus (MF) muscles oncentral L3 axial images. After two weeks, each observer repeated the same measurements. Theywere blinded to their previous results. Reliability was estimated by evaluating the repeatabilityand reproducibility.RESULTSThe repeatability of the fat content measurements of L3, PS, ES, and MF was high. The intraclasscorrelation coefficients of the fat content of L3, PS, ES, and MF were 0.997, 0.984, 0.997, and 0.995for observer A and 0.948, 0.974, 0.963, and 0.995 for observer B, respectively. The reproducibilityof the measurement of the fat content of L3, PS, ES, and MF was high, and the interclass correlationcoefficients were 0.984, 0.981, 0.977, and 0.998, respectively.CONCLUSIONUsing mDIXON-Quant imaging to measure the fat content of the lumbar vertebral marrow andparaspinal muscles shows high reliability and is suitable for use in clinical practice.