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Diffusion tensor tractography of normal facial and vestibulocochlear nerves

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International Journal of Computer Assisted Radiology and Surgery Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Purpose

Diffusion tensor tractography (DTT) is not adequately reliable for prediction of facial and vestibulocochlear (VII–VIII) nerve locations, especially relative to a vestibular schwannoma (VS). Furthermore, it is often not possible to visualize normal VII–VIII nerves by DTT (visualization rates were 12.5–63.6 %). Therefore, DTT post-processing was optimized for normal VII–VIII nerve visualization with and without manual noise elimination.

Methods

DTT examinations of ten patients were evaluated to assess the improvement in performance by modifying seed region of interest (ROI) and fractional anisotropy (FA) threshold. Seed ROI was placed at the porus of the internal auditory meatus, and FA threshold values were either fixed or variable for each patient. DTT visualization of cranial nerves VII–VIII was evaluated and the noise effect was measured.

Results

Cranial nerves VII–VIII were visualized in 90 % of patients without using manual noise elimination by modifying the seed ROI and FA threshold. The visualization rate with FA threshold of the upper limit in each patient (100 %) was significantly higher than that with FA threshold of 0.1 (75 %) (\(p=0.02\)). The incidence rate of noise with FA threshold of the upper limit (10 %) was not significantly different than the FA threshold of 0.1 (20 %) (\(p=0.66\)).

Conclusion

Seed ROI modification and FA thresholding can improve the visualization of cranial nerve VII–VIII locations in DTT. This technique is promising for its potential to determine the relationship of cranial nerves VII–VIII to VS.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Minoru Tanaka for suggesting this investigation. This work was supported in part by a Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Exploratory Research (25670618).

Conflict of interest

The authors report no conflict of interest concerning the materials or methods used in this study as well as the findings specified in this paper.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Neurosurgery, Graduate School of Medicine, The University of Tokyo, 7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, 113-8655, Japan

    Masanori Yoshino, Taichi Kin, Akihiro Ito, Daichi Nakagawa, Hirofumi Nakatomi & Nobuhito Saito

  2. Department of Clinical Information Engineering, Graduate School of Medicine, The University of Tokyo, 7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, 113-8655, Japan

    Toki Saito & Hiroshi Oyama

  3. Department of Neurosurgery, Asahikawa Medical University, 2-1, Midorigaoka-Higashi, Asahikawa, Hokkaido, 078-8510, Japan

    Kyousuke Kamada

  4. Department of Radiology, Graduate School of Medicine, The University of Tokyo, 7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, 113-8655, Japan

    Harushi Mori & Akira Kunimatsu

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  1. Masanori Yoshino
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  2. Taichi Kin
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Correspondence to Masanori Yoshino.

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Yoshino, M., Kin, T., Ito, A. et al. Diffusion tensor tractography of normal facial and vestibulocochlear nerves. Int J CARS 10, 383–392 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11548-014-1129-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11548-014-1129-2

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