Limits to the accuracy of 3D thickness measurement in magnetic resonance images

Abstract

Measuring the thickness of sheet-like (or plate-like) anatomical structures, such as articular cartilages and brain cortex, in 3D magnetic resonance (MR) images is often an important diagnostic procedure. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the fundamental limits to the accuracy of thickness determination in MR images. Given imaging and postprocessing parameters, the characteristics of thickness determination accuracy are derived by means of a theoretical simulation method, focusing especially on the effect of sheet structure orientation on accuracy in the case of noncubic (anisotropic) voxels. The theoretical simulation was validated by in vitro experiments.