The research of the morphology of vestibular aqueduct by the MSCT:highlighting the observed differences

NIUYu-ying; QUAN Yong; GU Bo

Abstract：Objective To investigate the morphology of vestibular aqueduct by the CT images .Methods One hundred twelve patients underwent CT scan of temporal bone for evaluation of the reasons other than sensorineural hearing loss and vertigo attacks ,and their temporal bone CT studies were reviewed .Midpoint and opercular measurements were performed in the axial ,single‐oblique and double‐oblique images .The morphometric analysis was also reported .The intraclass corre‐lation coefficients were reported .The coefficient of variation was calculated for each group and anatomic location .Results The morphology of the vestibular aqueduct may be tubular ,fissured or invisible and the respective number were found to be 144 ,75 and 5% .The coefficient of variation of vestibular aqueduct showed to be 37 .4% on axial image ,36 .5% on sin‐gle‐oblique image ,47 .5% on double‐oblique image ,in midpoint ,and in operculum it was 33 .0% ,40 .5% ,and 64.5% , respectively .There was substantial agreement between the two radiologists for the midpoint measurement in the axial , single‐oblique and double‐oblique images .Readers had almost perfect agreement for the operculum measurement in the axi‐al ,single‐oblique plane and double‐oblique plane .Conclusion The vestibular aqueduct presented with high variability in morphology and dimension in axial images ,single‐oblique images and double‐oblique images .The vestibular aqueduct may presented with the tubular ,fissured and invisible forms .