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International Journal of Legal Medicine
Published in: International Journal of Legal Medicine 4/2020

Open Access 01-07-2020 | Magnetic Resonance Imaging | Original Article

The four-minute approach revisited: accelerating MRI-based multi-factorial age estimation

Authors: Bernhard Neumayer, Andreas Lesch, Franz Thaler, Thomas Widek, Sebastian Tschauner, Jannick De Tobel, Thomas Ehammer, Barbara Kirnbauer, Julian Boldt, Mayonne van Wijk, Rudolf Stollberger, Martin Urschler

Published in: International Journal of Legal Medicine | Issue 4/2020

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Abstract

Objectives

This feasibility study aimed to investigate the reliability of multi-factorial age estimation based on MR data of the hand, wisdom teeth and the clavicles with reduced acquisition time.

Methods

The raw MR data of 34 volunteers—acquired on a 3T system and using acquisition times (TA) of 3:46 min (hand), 5:29 min (clavicles) and 10:46 min (teeth)—were retrospectively undersampled applying the commercially available CAIPIRINHA technique. Automatic and radiological age estimation methods were applied to the original image data as well as undersampled data to investigate the reliability of age estimates with decreasing acquisition time. Reliability was investigated determining standard deviation (SSD) and mean (MSD) of signed differences, intra-class correlation (ICC) and by performing Bland-Altman analysis.

Results

Automatic age estimation generally showed very high reliability (SSD < 0.90 years) even for very short acquisition times (SSD ≈ 0.20 years for a total TA of 4 min). Radiological age estimation provided highly reliable results for images of the hand (ICC ≥ 0.96) and the teeth (ICC ≥ 0.79) for short acquisition times (TA = 16 s for the hand, TA = 2:21 min for the teeth), imaging data of the clavicles allowed for moderate acceleration (TA = 1:25 min, ICC ≥ 0.71).

Conclusions

The results demonstrate that reliable multi-factorial age estimation based on MRI of the hand, wisdom teeth and the clavicles can be performed using images acquired with a total acquisition time of 4 min.
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Metadata
Title
The four-minute approach revisited: accelerating MRI-based multi-factorial age estimation
Authors
Bernhard Neumayer
Andreas Lesch
Franz Thaler
Thomas Widek
Sebastian Tschauner
Jannick De Tobel
Thomas Ehammer
Barbara Kirnbauer
Julian Boldt
Mayonne van Wijk
Rudolf Stollberger
Martin Urschler
Publication date
01-07-2020
Publisher
Springer Berlin Heidelberg
Published in
International Journal of Legal Medicine / Issue 4/2020
Print ISSN: 0937-9827
Electronic ISSN: 1437-1596
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s00414-019-02231-w

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