Suitability of Latebra as a Skin Marker for Magnetic Resonance Imaging

Light-colored yolk material inside an egg shows higher magnetic resonance (MR) signals than surrounding material, which is termed the latebra, has been studied previously. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the usefulness of the latebra as a skin marker by comparing with other MR imaging (MRI) markers. Four materials, namely latebra, mouth freshener, baby oil, and a marker from a medical company, were placed in plastic cases and scanned to examine their signal intensities by calculating the contrast with agar signal. These materials were then evaluated using five types of MR imaging techniques, and the contrast values of some of the materials were calculated and compared by performing Tukey’s multiple comparison test. The latebra showed quite high contrast values in T1 weighted images with fat suppression and diffusion weighted image. All materials used in this study were observed to produce stable results over a period of 3 months. The latebra can easily be obtained and, based on the results of this study, is suitable as an MRI skin marker.