Comparison of turbo inversion recovery magnitude (TIRM) with T2-weighted turbo spin-echo and T1-weighted spin-echo MR imaging in the early diagnosis of acute osteomyelitis in children

Objective. To compare turbo inversion recovery magnitude (TIRM) with standard T1-weighted (T1-W) and T2-weighted (T2-W) MR sequences in the very early detection of acute osteomyelitis in children. Materials and methods. In 15 children with osteomyelitis, 15 sets of T1-W spin-echo (SE) (TR/TE, 400–640/12–17), T2-W turbo spin-echo (TSE) (TR/TE/ETL, 3290–4465/112–120/11), and TIRM (TR/TE/TI, 4000–6120/60/160) images were acquired with a 1.0-T magnet. Contrast-to-noise (C/N) ratios and percentage of signal between lesion and normal bone marrow were analysed with a computer-assisted image analysing system in a region of interest (ROI). Results. In 13 of 15 patients, the absolute signal enhancement in a ROI on the TIRM images was better than on the T1-W SE and T2-W TSE images and in 14 of 15 cases, C/N ratios were also better on the TIRM images than on the other sequences. In the other cases, the TIRM signal was diagnostically equivalent. On the TIRM images, the signal difference between normal and pathological tissue was increased to 43–281 % (mean 124 %). On the T2-W TSE images, this signal difference was 4–79 % (mean 36 %) and on the T1-W SE images 6–77 % (mean 37 %). Conclusion. The TIRM sequence is highly sensitive for detecting bone marrow oedema in the very early stage of acute osteomyelitis in children. MRI utilising the TIRM sequence allowed for an early diagnosis. With scan time of less than 4 minutes, this sequence is superior to T1-W SE and T2-W TSE images for detecting early osteomyelitis-associated bone marrow oedema.