Melanie S. Kotys-Traughber1, Bryan J. Traughber2, Michael Meltsner3, Raymond F. Muzic, Jr. 2
1MR Clinical Science, Philips Healthcare, Cleveland, OH, United States; 2Department of Radiology, University Hospitals Case Medical Center, Cleveland, OH, United States; 3Philips Radiation Oncology Systems, Philips Healthcare, Fitchburg, WI, United States
Two emerging MR applications, MR-based radiation therapy planning (RTP) and hybrid PET/MR systems, require complete segmentation of cortical bone. We investigate a 3D UTE multi-echo acquisition and subtraction method for generation of MR-based digitally reconstructed radiographs (DRRs) and attenuation correction (AC) maps. After careful calibration of the gradient hardware, the method robustly segments cortical bone in the brain. The DRRs generated from the bone-enhanced images appear sufficient for 2D patient matching. The range of TEs tested, from 90-200s, yielded excellent signal from cortical bone and the signal from bone, tissue and air were significantly different at all TEs.