Trial Information

Assessment of Mandibular Bone Invasion With Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) Using Sweep Imaging Fourier Transformation (SWIFT)

Unfortunately, detecting bone invasion and extension of bone involvement prior to surgery is
often difficult with the currently available imaging techniques. MRI with high contrast
resolution and the ability to perform multiplanar imaging plays an integral role in the
delineation of tumoral involvement of the bone. Although MRI is an excellent tool in the
assessment of bone invasion in carcinoma, its overestimation of cortical invasion and tumor
extent to the bone marrow have been a diagnostic challenge, leading to false positive
results. Like many of the musculoskeletal system tissues, cortical bone produces no signal
with conventional MRI techniques, limiting the characterization of image contrast and
differentiation of adjacent soft tissues. A novel MRI technique called Sweep Imaging with
Fourier Transformation (SWIFT) appears to be a suitable tool to overcome this challenge.
The main advantage of SWIFT is to obtain signal from the cortical bone. We believe that the
SWIFT technique will overcome the false positive results.

Patients enrolled in this study will be asked to come to the Center for Magnetic Resonance
Research (CMRR) at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota for a scheduled MRI.
Brief scans will be obtained (less than 1 minute) to localize the area of interest. Longer
MRI scans (around 5-15 minutes each) will then be obtained. The total time required for
scanning will be about 1 hour.

To determine how well our MR images will predict the presence of mandibular invasion, we
will compare our results with clinical, operative, radiological and pathological findings.
Thus, patients will be asked to give permission to the investigators to access the relevant
medical records.