Balanced Turbo Field Echo MRI as a radiation-free adjunct for spinal bone imaging: A prospective study of 526 patients.
prospective_cohort · Level II
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 42433311.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1016/j.jor.2026.05.014 and PMC identifier 13352407.
- No licence information is recorded for this record.
- Because redistribution is not established, this page shows the abstract only. Follow the links below for the full text.
Abstract
Single-centre, prospective, within-subject observational imaging-quality study with a single experienced reader. To evaluate whether adding a 3D Balanced Turbo Field Echo (BTFE) sequence to routine 3T spine MRI improves visualization of osseous spinal pathology compared with conventional T1/T2-weighted MRI and plain radiographs. Between March and November 2024, 526 consecutive adults underwent spine imaging including T1/T2-weighted and BTFE MRI on a 3T scanner plus plain radiographs; thin-section CT served as confirmatory reference in a small ligamentum flavum ossification (LFO) subgroup. Six osseous pathologies were scored: disc osteophyte complex, OPLL, LFO, spondylolisthesis, spondylolysis and vertebral fracture. A single senior consultant radiologist ( <math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><mo>></mo></math> 10 years' experience), blinded to other modalities and clinical details, graded visualization on a 3-point ordinal scale in separate, randomized, washed-out sessions. Modalities were compared per pathology with Friedman's test and Holm-corrected Wilcoxon post-hoc tests. Mean age was <math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><mrow><mn>60.2</mn> <mo>±</mo> <mn>11.8</mn></mrow> </math> years; 297 (56.5%) were female; thoraco-lumbar scans accounted for 454 (86.3%). Disc osteophyte was most common (n = 229, 43.5%). BTFE scored significantly higher than routine MRI and plain radiographs for every pathology (all <math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><mrow><mi>p</mi> <mo><</mo> <mn>0.001</mn></mrow> </math> ). OPLL was invisible on radiographs but well delineated on BTFE. For LFO, BTFE meaningfully outperformed routine MRI, representing a radiation-free improvement over standard MRI practice. Adding a widely available BTFE sequence to routine 3T spine MRI improved visualization of spinal osseous pathology without ionizing radiation. BTFE should be regarded as a candidate bone-imaging adjunct; head-to-head comparison with CT and with established CT-like MRI sequences (ZTE, FRACTURE, 3D FLASH, T1-spoiled gradient-echo, synthetic CT) is needed.