Comprehensive comparison of MR image quality between intratympanic and intravenous gadolinium injection using 3D real IR sequences.

Intratympanic and intravenous gadolinium administration is used to visualise endolymphatic hydrops. The goal of this study was to compare the image quality between intratympanic (IT-method) and intravenous (IV-method) gadolinium administration using three-dimensional inversion recovery with real reconstruction (3D real IR) sequences. A number of 152 patients with Meniere's disease were included. The 3D real IR sequence was performed 24 h after IT administration or 4 h after IV administration. The detection rate of endolymphatic hydrops, signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), and contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) of the two methods were compared. Specifically, the average image scores of the two methods were evaluated by two radiologists. The SNR and CNRs of the IT-method were higher than those of the IV-method, whereas no significant difference between the IT-method and IV-method with regard to the SNR was found. The average image scores were 3.49 ± 0.12 and 3.30 ± 0.12 for the IT-method and IV-method, respectively ( = .229). No statistically significant difference was found between two methods in terms of the detection rate of endolymphatic hydrops. IT-method images can display endolymphatic hydrops more precisely than IV-method images. The IV-method can be used as an alternative to the IT-method in clinical applications to some extent.