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Xiaojuan Li¹, Jonathan Cheng¹, Radu I. Bolbos¹, C Benjamin Ma¹, Thomas M. Link¹, Sharmila Majumdar¹

¹University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, California , USA

Patients with anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injuries tend to develop osteoarthritis despite ACL reconstruction. The goal of this study was to longitudinally evaluate cartilage degeneration in ACL-injured knees using MR T1rho relaxation time quantification. Six patients with acute ACL injuries were scanned at 3T at baseline (prior to surgery), two-week, six-month and one-year after ACL reconstruction. Significantly elevated T1rho were observed in bone-marrow-edema-like-lesion (BMEL)-overlying cartilage at both baseline and one-year follow-up, despite significant decrease of BMEL volume at one-year (P < 0.05). This preliminary data suggested that there is potential early degeneration in cartilage of ACL-injured knees.

Wei Li¹, Rachel Scheidegger¹, Ying Wu¹, Robert R. Edelman¹, Pottumarthi V. Prasad V. Prasad¹

¹Evanston Hospital and Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Evanston, Illinois, USA

This study was to evaluate if δ R1, which needs the use of combination of pre- and post-contrast acquisition, can provide better differentiation of osteoarthritis (OA) with healthy subjects for dGEMRIC. Pre- and post-contrast T1 measurements were performed in 17 OA patients and 14 healthy subjects with 2D IR-FSE or/and 3D LL techniques. High correlation was observed between T1Gd and δ R1. δ R1 does slightly improve the differentiation of OA from healthy subjects.  This modest improvement needs to be weighed against the additional cost and effort in acquiring T1pre.

Juhani Multanen¹, Erkki Rauvala², Eveliina Lammentausta², Risto Ojala², Ilkka Kiviranta³, Arja Häkkinen¹, Ari Heinonen¹, Miika T. Nieminen², ⁴

¹University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä, Finland; ²Oulu University Hospital, Oulu, Finland; ³Helsinki University Hospital, Helsinki, Finland; ⁴University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland

Long-term reproducibility of the dGEMRIC technique was studied in single slice measurements of the central lateral femoral condyle and underlying tibial cartilage in the sagittal plane, and in central patellar cartilage in the axial plane. dGEMRIC measurements in ten asymptomatic volunteers were repeated three times with average interval of 5 days. The absolute reproducibility, as measured by RMS coefficient of variation was 4.2%, 5.5% and 4.8% for bulk cartilage in the slice for femur, tibia and patella, respectively. The reproducibility at various topographical locations for superficial and deep cartilage ROIs ranged between 4.7-12.9% while the intraclass correlation coefficient was 0.45-0.98.

Nitya Krishnan¹, Bradley Wyman², Robert Buck³, Marie-Pierre Hellio³, Saara Totterman⁴, Jose Tamez⁴, Deborah Burstein¹

¹Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, Massachusetts, USA; ²Pfizer Global Research and Development, Groton, Connecticut, USA; ³Pfizer Global Research and Development, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA; ⁴VirtualScopics, Rochester, New York, USA

This study analyzes a subset (control n=31, OA n=22) of the A9001140 longitudinal multicenter, multivendor trial at 3T. Good correlations were found between results utilizing analysis of a single section from each condyle versus analysis of the entire cartilage region. Similar to single site, 1.5T trials, cartilage from KLG0 knees had higher dGEMRIC indices than KLG3. A slight increase in dGEMRIC index was seen at 6-month compared to baseline in KLG0. Further analysis of remaining subjects and time points may help in planning future clinical trials.

Carmen Taylor¹, Julio Carballido-Gamio¹, Sharmila Majumdar¹, Xiaojuan Li¹

¹UCSF, San Francisco, California , USA

This work compares MRI (T1, T2, T1rho) and contrast-enhanced CT in human osteoarthritic articular cartilage, in the presence and absence of gadolinium-based contrast agent. T2 values correlated moderately well with postcontrast T1 and T1rho values. Postcontrast T1 was found to correlate equivalently well with T1rho and T2, but contrast-enhanced CT values correlated better with T1rho and postcontrast T1 better than T2. Both T1rho and T2 values were significantly different before and after contrast addition.

Lauri Mattila¹, Jatta E. Kurkijärvi², Risto Ojala¹, Marianne Haapea¹, Osmo Tervonen¹, ³, Ilkka Kiviranta⁴, Miika T. Nieminen¹, ³

¹Oulu University Hospital, Oulu, Finland; ²University of Kuopio, Kuopio, Finland; ³University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland; ⁴Helsinki University Hospital, Helsinki, Finland

Autologous chondrocyte transplantation (ACT) is a method for repairing focal chondral defects. Combined T2 relaxation time measurements and dGEMRIC at 1.5T were used to study ACT repair at 5±1, 12±2 and 23±1 months after the ACT operation. T2 measurements suggest that the collagen orientation of ACT graft tissue has not regained the 3-D collagen architecture typical to articular cartilage in two years. Proteoglycan replenishment, as measured by dGEMRIC, can reach normal levels during the first six months after the operation and significant changes in PG levels may not occur thereafter.

Goetz Hannes Welsch¹, Siegfried Trattnig¹, Sebastian Quirbach¹, Stefan Marlovits¹, Stephan Domayer¹, Oliver Bieri², Klaus Scheffler², Tallal Charles Mamisch³

¹Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria; ²University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland; ³University of Berne, Berne, Switzerland

Magnetization Contrast Imaging (MTC) has shown its benefits in neuroradiology, however it also has its potential in musculoskeletal-MRI of cartilage repair tissue. The purpose of this initial study was to show the potential of MTC in the assessment of healthy articular cartilage as well as cartilage repair tissue after different cartilage repair procedures and compare it to widely used T2 mapping at 3 Tesla MRI. Furthermore as a visible zonal variation has been seen to add additional information in T2 relaxation evaluation of articular cartilage, within MTC deep and superficial cartilage aspects were assessed to elucidate a possible zonal difference.

Miika T. Nieminen¹, ², Outi Parviainen¹, Marianne Haapea¹, Tatu Kokkonen³, Juha Isolehto⁴, Ilkka Kiviranta³

¹Oulu University Hospital, Oulu, Finland; ²University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland; ³Helsinki University Hospital, Helsinki, Finland; ⁴University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä, Finland

The effect of intensive long-term running training on articular cartilage was studied in human marathon trainers. T2 relaxation time and dGEMRIC measurements at 1.5T were performed at baseline and 6-months follow-up, controlled by biomechanical joint loading measurements. Training resulted in subtle but significant local changes in T2 and dGERMIC in the femoral and tibial load bearing compartments. The T2 results show a trend towards prolonged values after intensive training but also when the quality of loading is stressful for the joint.

Tallal Charles Mamisch¹, Goetz Hannes Welsch², Sebastian Quirbach², Stefan Marlovits², Siegfried Trattnig²

¹University of Berne, Berne, Switzerland; ²Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria

The biomechanical constitution of articular cartilage is changed during loading. However these changes are reported to diminish during unloading. The aim of this study was to use quantitative cartilage T2 mapping and its zonal assessment for the evaluation of unloading during a one hour MR scan as a potential new tool in the differentiation of healthy and altered articular cartilage within the knee. In an initial study, a subtraction of the pre- and post-unloading T2 maps could visualize cartilage changes between healthy cartilage and cartilage defects or cartilage repair tissue.

Laura L. Greaves¹, Michael Gilbart¹, Andrew Yung¹, Piotr Kozlowski¹, David R. Wilson¹

¹University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada

The feasibility and repeatability of measuring cartilage deformation at the hip under a physiological load was assessed with 7.0T qMRI. A human cadaveric hip was axially compressed in a custom pneumatic loading device. Imaging was performed with a fat-suppressed 3D FLASH sequence and a resolution of 0.11x 0.11 x 1 mm was achieved. Mean cartilage compression was 0.71 mm (34%) after 3 hr 45 min, error due to repeatability was 0.13 mm (3.4%). We successfully measured cartilage deformation in the hip and the overall magnitude of deformation was far greater than our resolution and error due to repeatability.