MRI Study Of The Third Ventricle Volume And Width Inhealthy Chinese Adults And Compare To Width In Hydrocephalus

Objective: By using MRI technique, measure the normal value of the third ventricle volume and width of the healthy Chinese adults and discuss its variation with age. Evaluate whether there were differences between genders of the third ventricle volume and width. by measuring the width of hydrocephalus patients, and compared to the normal volunteers, and then find whether there were satatistally significant.Materials and Methods:1000 healthy volunteers, age ranged from 18 to 70 years, were grouped as 18～30 years,31～40 years,41～50years,51～60 years,61～70 years. Each group had 200 people, which was composed of 100 women and 100 men, they had no abnormality in the convention health examination. The study was approved by the national research ethics committee, and all the subjects gave their informed written consent. 40 hydrocephalus patients, age ranged from 18 to 70 years, equally divided into five groups. Each group had 8 patients ,which was composed of 4 women and 4 men. All imaging was performed in a 1.5-T system (Signa; GE Medical Systems & Sonata; Siemens Medical Systems). After positioning the sections, two sequences were acquired: Flair of T2, three dimensional fast spoiled gradient-recalled,(3D-FSPGR GE) or 3D-fast low angle shot(3D-FLASH Siemens). All volumes and witdth were computed by MIDOB software(version 1.0.0.1) developed by Neusoft ,and then analyzed with SPSS ( version16.0). 40 hydrocephalus patients were performed in a 1.5-T system(Signa; GE Medical Systems),and measuring the width of third ventricle on the imaging of T2 flair. Results: Average volume of third ventricle in healthy Chinese adults was 0.935±0.487 cm3, average width of third ventricle was 0.383±0.157cm. Pearson correlation analysis showed a significant positive correlation between Chinese third ventricle volume,width and age. The absolute volume and width of the third ventricle of male was larger than female. Average width of third ventricle in hydrocephalus patient was 1.563±0.308cm. The absolute width of the third ventricle of hydrocephalus patients was significantly larger than normal healthy volunteers(t=-44.298,p<0.001).Conclusions: Third ventricle has a trend toward increase as Chinese become older; The absolute volume and width of the third ventricle of Chinese male is larger than female. The width of the third ventricle of hydrocephalus patients was significantly larger than normal healthy volunteers.