Evaluation of Magnetic Resonance Imaging MRI Protocols in Demonstration of Shoulder Joint Anatomical Structures

Abstract

The main objectives of this study were to evaluate the protocols for shoulder joint images in deferent MRI departments, and then correlate between the applied protocols in MRI shoulder images and Stander one, and to detect the best pulse sequence for display joint cartilage, glenoid Labrum and the condition of muscles and tendons of the rotator cuff. Random samples of 44 cases for MRI shoulder joint examination were selected with deferent MRI clinical problems. This cases were collected from three medical centers in the khartoum which were (Modern Medical center, Alrebat hospital and Alnileen center) in the period from January to August 2011 To evaluate the images the researcher select some anatomical structures of the shoulder which were glenoid labrum, subscaplars muscle, hmeral head, supraspinatis muscle, long head of biceps, glenoid articuler cartilage, and glinohmeral ligament. These anatomical structures were evaluated in T1 weighted image, T2 weighted image, and fat saturation plus. by using two methods of evaluation First the signal intensity were evaluated as hyper intensity, hypo intensity and iso intensity. And were compared to the standerd one and presented in cross tabulation for all different hospitals Scand according to visualization excellence and were given grads where grad (0) means boor visualization, grad (1)acceptable visualization, and grad(2) excellent visualization. This evaluation was according to the opinion of the radiologist. The main results of this study were That T2 weighted images were the best sequence to evaluate most of anatomical part of shoulder, the fat saturation is good to visualizes the glenoid labrum and glenoid articuler cartilage. The T1 weighted image in modern medical center is more acceptable than that used in Alrebat hospital and Alnileen center.