Li Sze Chow1, Lauren Wallis1, Nigel Hoggard1, Simon J. Hickman2, Martyn N.J. Paley1
1Academic Unit of Radiology, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK; 2Department of Neurology, The Sheffield Royal Hallamshire Hospital, Sheffield, UK
The aim of this study was to develop a program to accurately calculate the optic nerve diameter, area and volume using Gaussian fitting of the acquired MR images. The program will be used in a new study of optic neuritis on 1.5T and 3.0T MR systems with both T1- and T2-weighted 3D Spectral Presaturation Inversion Recovery (SPIR) sequences and much shorter scan times. This study has also shown that T2W images are suitable for measuring the actual optic nerves dimension; whereas T1W images can be used to measure the optic nerve and the sheath and CSF surrounding the nerve.