Rapid Anatomic and Quantitative MR Imaging of the Skull Base and Face - PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT Skull base and face imaging accounts for nearly 20% of clinical neuroradiology examinations. But clinical MRI of the skull base and face continues to rely primarily on conventional 2D T1-weighted and T2-weighted pulse sequences and fat suppression techniques. These techniques generate suboptimal tissue contrasts with suboptimal spatial resolution. The long acquisition times often lead to motion artifact. Contrast weightings and rapid acquisitions tailored to the uniquely small structures of the skull base and face would expand the clinical utility of MRI for diagnosing pathologies of these regions. Dr. Guenette’s goal for this four-year K08 mentored career development award is to gain the skills needed to develop comprehensive skull base- and face-specific MRI sequences and protocols that optimize clinically relevant contrast-to-noise and simultaneously acquire relaxometry biomarkers that are co-registered to the anatomic images at the voxel level with markedly reduced scan times compared with current standard-of-care skull base and face MR imaging. Dr. Guenette is a neuroradiologist with skull base and face sub-specialization at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. His research has included optimizing product pulse sequences for imaging skull base and face structures. The training objectives and research activities of this proposal will provide Dr. Guenette with the mentorship, time, and resources to learn and apply MRI physics, pulse sequence design, and image processing. The main research expertise of Dr. Guenette’s mentor, Dr. Bruno Madore, an MRI physicist, lies in the development of novel acquisition and image reconstruction strategies for MRI. The co-mentor, Dr. Ravi Uppaluri, is an otolaryngology-head/neck surgeon physician-scientist with complementary clinical expertise. In Aim 1 Dr. Guenette will: build a normative atlas of quantitative T2, T1, and relative proton density values of anatomic structures in the skull base and face; use this atlas to generate and test theoretically optimal contrasts for nerve imaging; establish normative T2, T1, and relative proton density values of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) tumors to generate and test optimal contrasts for visualizing and segmenting HNSCC tumors; and test the biomarker potential of T2, T1, and relative proton density measures in HNSCC. In Aim 2 he will: develop a novel pulse sequence that incorporates scanner gradient strength as a parameter to further decrease scan times and evaluate synthetic pulse sequences across 1.5T, 3T, and 7T field strengths. The training and data will facilitate Dr. Guenette’s long-term goal to independently lead an NIH-funded laboratory focused on developing and implementing more rapid qualitative MR anatomic imaging and quantitative MR methods specifically tailored to the skull base, face, and neck structures and pathologies.
