Evaluation of MRI Orthogonal Planes in Differential Diagnosis of Non-Tumour Brain Lesions

BACKGROUND Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) provides structural characterization of brain lesions, by measuring volume of axial, sagittal and coronal planes through two dimensional slices. The purpose of this study was to characterize and identify the orthogonal imaging planes to detect non tumour lesions of brain through MRI. METHODS This study included 81 patients, both males and females, suspected of brain lesions and underwent MRI for diagnosis. The variations in the volume of the anatomical structures were measured and compared the planes as axial and sagittal, axial and coronal and coronal and sagittal for non-tumour brain lesions. RESULTS The present study revealed the differences in the measurement of volume in nontumour lesions (N = 81) in axial, sagittal and coronal planes. It was found that the volume of axial planes (9.2) is more dominant than the sagittal (9.1) and coronal planes (8.8) in non-tumour lesions. Statistical analysis was done by Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS version 16 software). Two way/Friedman test were used for comparing the three groups. CONCLUSIONS This study concluded that, in most of the brain lesions irrespective of the type of tumours, axial planes helps more in the detection of tumour volume as compared to sagittal and coronal planes for precise diagnosis of brain lesions. KEY WORDS Axial Plane; Coronal Plane; Magnetic Resonance Imaging; Non-Tumour Brain Lesions; Sagittal Plane.