CT vs. MRI in nasal cavity modeling: Implications for CFD simulations and model consistency

¹ CTU in Prague, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Department of Fluid Dynamics and Thermodynamics, Technická 4, 160 00 Prague, Czech Republic
² Charles University and Military University Hospital, First Faculty of Medicine, Department of Neurosurgery and Neurooncology, U Vojenské nemocnice 1200, 169 02 Prague 6, Czech Republic

^* Corresponding author: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Published online: 12 March 2026

Abstract

The use of computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in medicine has significantly increased over the past decade, enabling the creation of accurate patient-specific anatomical models. This study aims to compare CT and MRI scans in the reconstruction of nasal cavity geometries and their subsequent impact on computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations. Patient-specific models were generated from both CT and MRI datasets using 3D Slicer, and airflow simulations were performed in ANSYS Fluent. The resulting models exhibited substantial geometric differences: CT-based models showed approximately four times higher volume intensity range compared to MRI-based models. Additionally, the segmentation and model preparation from MRI data required 16 hours longer than for CT data of the same patient. These findings indicate that models derived from CT and MRI scans are not directly interchangeable for CFD analysis of nasal airflow. Consequently, combining CTand MRI-based datasets within a single study may lead to inconsistencies in simulation results.