Elsevier

Ophthalmology

Volume 99, Issue 5, May 1992, Pages 713-719
Ophthalmology

Enhancement and Demyefination of the Intraorbital Optic Nerve: Fat Suppression Magnetic Resonance Imaging

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0161-6420(92)31892-5Get rights and content

Conventional spin-echo magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of intraorbital optic neuritis is hampered by the adjacent high signal and chemical shift artifact of orbital fat. Frequency-selective saturation pulse MRI reduces these problems and was used to determine its utility in evaluation of intraorbital optic neuritis. Eight consecutive patients with optic neuritis underwent MRI within 1 week of the onset of visual loss. Conventional MRI with T1, proton density, and T2 weighting and frequency-selective saturation pulse MRI with T1, proton density, and T2 weighting were performed. After administration of intravenous gadopentetate dimeglumine, T1-weighted conventional and frequency-selective saturation pulse MRI were performed. Frequency-selective saturation pulse MRI showed gadopentetate dimeglumine enhancement in the intraorbital optic nerve in 7 patients and the intracranial optic nerve in 3 patients. Conventional MRI failed to show optic nerve gadopentetate dimeglumine enhancement in patients with intraorbital lesions, but did show intracranial lesions. Frequency-selective saturation pulse MRI showed bilateral optic nerve enhancement in 3 patients with unilateral visual signs and symptoms. Proton density and T2-weighted conventional MRI of the brain showed no convincing signal aberrations in the optic nerves. In the MRI evaluation of intraorbital optic neuritis: (1) frequency-selective saturation pulse fat suppression MRI is superior to T1-weighted conventional MRI in the detection of gadopentetate dimeglumine enhancement; (2) frequency-selective saturation pulse proton density and T2-weighted MRI is superior to proton density and T2-weighted conventional MRI; (3) frequency-selective saturation pulse MRI showed gadopentetate dimeglumine enhancement as well as proton density/T2-weighted signal aberration in exactly the same portion of the intraorbital optic nerve.

References (21)

There are more references available in the full text version of this article.

Cited by (70)

  • Comparison of 3D Double Inversion Recovery (DIR) versus 3D Fluid Attenuated Inversion Recovery (FLAIR) in precise diagnosis of acute optic neuritis

    2022, European Journal of Radiology
    Citation Excerpt :

    It is surrounded by high contrast fat; prone to chemical shift artefacts due to sleeve of CSF and is closely approximated to the proton-deficient bone in its canalicular segment; all of which impose a challenge to its characterization. This drove earlier approaches to evaluate ON that revolved around 2D STIR and 2D-FS, which have employed section thicknesses of 3–4 mm [10,11]. Studies focusing on sequences capable of suppressing fluid, fat and normal WM using FLAIR and DIR were conducted which showed their usefulness in identifying demyelinating lesions [12].

  • Optic neuritis

    2010, Ocular Disease: Mechanisms and Management Expert Consult
  • Optic neuritis

    2010, Ocular Disease: Mechanisms and Management
  • Retinal atrophy correlates with fMRI response in patients with recovered optic neuritis

    2011, Neurology
    Citation Excerpt :

    Our results are in agreement with another study that also used unselected patients.19 Our detection rate of 63% of the optic nerve lesion is somewhat lower than most other studies.4,5,20–25 The choice of MRI sequence was based on clinical experience whereas other studies have focused more on identification rate when choosing MRI sequences, some with the use of triple-dose gadolinium.4

View all citing articles on Scopus

Supported in part by an unrestricted departmental grant from Research to Prevent Blindness, Inc, New York, New York.

View full text