Quantitative comparison of conventional and synthetic MRI for cortical and trabecular bone architecture: ex vivo study of bovine coccyx

Synthetic MRI has recently been shown to offer comparable performance to conventional pulse sequences in the assessment of intracranial abnormalities with greater time efficiency. We assessed the capability to predict bone architecture from MRI by comparing T1 and T2 relaxation times calculated by conventional and synthetic MRI and bone indices determined by micro-CT using bovine coccyx. This experimental study demonstrated that cortical porosity was significantly correlated with the cortical bone T2 relaxation time calculated from synthetic MRI. Synthetic MRI is feasible for assessing bone architecture and bone quality in clinically relevant acquisition time without radiation exposure.