ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Vet. Sci.
Sec. Veterinary Imaging
Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fvets.2025.1664006
COMPARATIVE STUDY OF MENINGEAL ENHANCEMENT IN CANINE AND FELINE OTITIS MEDIA-INTERNA: 3D-GRADIENT-ECHO VERSUS FAT-SUPPRESSED TURBO-SPIN-ECHO-T1-WEIGHTED SEQUENCES IN MRI
Provisionally accepted
- 1University of Zurich, Vetsuisse Faculty, Clinic for Diagnostic Imaging, Department of Diagnostics and Clinical Services, Zurich, Switzerland
- 2Vetimage Diagnostik AG, Oberentfelden, Switzerland
- 3University of Zurich, Vetsuisse Faculty, Neurology Service, Department of Small Animal, Zurich, Switzerland
- 4WAVES Western Australian Veterinary Emergency & Specialty, Success, WA 6164, Australia
- 5Department of Small Animal Medicine and Surgery, University of Veterinary Medicine Hannover Foundation, Hannover, Germany
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MRI plays an important role in diagnosing meningeal disease in dogs and cats. It remains unclear which T1 sequence most reliably detects meningeal contrast enhancement. The aim of this retrospective study was to compare detection rate, inter-and intra-observer agreement of meningeal enhancement in otitis media-interna between 3D-GRE-T1W and transverse FS-TSE-T1W sequences. The hypothesis postulated a higher detection rate, inter-and intra-observer agreement for meningeal enhancement in the FS-TSE-T1W compared to the 3D-GRE-T1W sequence. MRI studies of dogs and cats with otitis media and interna from 2017 to 2023 including both sequences of interest were collected and supplemented with a control group. Five observers assessed presence or absence of meningeal enhancement twice independently in each sequence and blinded to the diagnosis. Detection rate, inter-and intra-observer agreement were evaluated using Student's T-Test and Fleiss' Kappa test, respectively. Cases from 46 dogs and 74 cats and 21 control cases met the inclusion criteria. On average, the observers detected meningeal enhancement significantly (P<0.01) more often in the FS-TSE-T1W than in the 3D-GRE-T1W sequence. Significance applied only to cats, but not to dogs. They reached a substantial inter-observer agreement in both sequences (kappa values of 0.701 and 0.735) and a substantial intra-observer agreement independent of the sequence. These results show that highlighting diseased meninges with fat saturation contributes more than a reduction of volume-average artifacts by increasing resolution in the detection of meningeal enhancement in cats and dogs with otitis media and interna. However, over-interpretation of normal meningeal appearance is possible.
Keywords: Dixon, Fat-suppression, Meningitis, otogenic intracranial infection, post-contrast sequence, Spir
Received: 11 Jul 2025; Accepted: 05 Sep 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Graf, Dennler, Beckmann, Mauri, Makara and Wang-Leandro. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Florian Graf, fgraf789@gmail.com
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