The Thin Sectional Anatomy Of The Temporal Bone Correlated With Multislice Spiral CT

Purpose: To explore the method of obtaining the thin sectional data of the adult temporal bone and study the thin transversal sectional anatomy of the structures within the temporal bone for providing anatomical bases for the image diagnosis and surgical treatment of the diseases of the temporal bone.Materials and Methods: To collect 2 head specimens of the Chinese adults.The images with thickness of 0.6mm of multislice spiral CT (MSCT) was obtained by multi-planar reconstrution(MPR) based on the superior orbitomeatal line.After multi-slice CT isotropic scan, the head specimens were embeded with galetin and freezed in the freezer under the temperature of -40℃.Based on the superior orbitomeatal line, the specimens were sliced into continuous sections with thickness of 0.1mm on transversal plane using the computerized miller.The pictures of the sections were taken by digital camera. The sectional data was saved in computer.The thin transversal sectional anatomy of the structures within the temporal bone were investigated and contrasted with multislice spiral CT images acquired by MPR technique.Results:From the section appearing the superior border of thepetrous part of the temporal bone to the section disappearing the tip of the mastoid process, 2 specimens were sliced into 312 and 295 continuous sections with the thickness of 0.1 mm on transversal plane separately, 78 and 73 MSCT images with thickness of 0.6mm were acquired respectively. Comparing the thin transversal sectional anatomy of the temporal bone with the same specimens MSCT images, we know that thin sections of the temporal bone can clearly delineate the anatomical details of the temporal bone and their relationships. 10 important anatomic structure within the temporal bone were evaluated, the morphological characteristics of the key structures of the temporal bone were described using 20 continuous transversal cryosections and MSCT images reconstructed by MPR.Conclusion: (1) The computerized cryomilling technique can obtain the thin sectional anatomic data with the thickness of 0.1mm of the temporal bone. The sections can keep proper position,shape,and color of internal structure of the temporal bone and satisfy the request of explaining multi-slice CT images of the adult temporal bone. So this technique is a good method to study thin sectional anatomy of the temporal bone. (2) The multislice CT isotropic scanning technique makes it possible that the MSCT images can correspond with the cryosectoinal anatomy of the same specimen. (3) The study provides the thin sectional anatomic data with thickness of 0.1mm of the adult temporal bone and push the sectional anatomic sdudy of the adult temporal bone to the level of 0.1mm.