Fig. 3

A patient with a healed atlas fracture, demonstrating the influence of the reconstruction and reformatting parameters on the image quality. A reconstruction thickness of 3 mm in the axial plane results in good image quality in the axial plane (3-mm thickness); however, reformatting in 3-mm thickness in the sagittal and coronal plane results in poor image quality. After reconstruction in 1-mm thickness and reformatting in 3-mm thickness in all three planes, there is a much better image quality in the sagittal and coronal plane. When reformatting the images in 1-mm thickness, the spatial resolution is increased best appreciated on the coronal image in the occipitoatlantal articulation. The images are also much noisier than after reformatting in 3-mm thickness. The images should always be reconstructed in relatively thin slice thickness. Reformatting in thicker slices then still results in good quality images