Vincent Keereman1, Yves De Deene1,2, Tom Broux3, Ignace Lemahieu1, Stefaan Vandenberghe1
1MEDISIP, Ghent University - IBBT - IBiTech, Ghent, Belgium; 2Laboratory for Quantitative Nuclear Magnetic Resonance in Medicine and Biology, ECNURAD, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium; 3Radiology/BEFY, UZ Brussel, Brussels, Belgium
The very low signal intensity of cortical bone in conventional MRI sequences makes it difficult to distinguish this tissue type from air and derive a PET attenuation map from MR images. We investigate the use of a quantitative parameter (R2) that correlates well with the density images obtained with CT. This parameter is derived from UTE images acquired at different echo times. We demonstrate the feasibility of using the R2-map derived from MR UTE images for making the distinction between bone and soft tissue. Segmentation of human MR images into bone, soft tissue and air is also shown.