Geon-Ho Jahng1, Wook Jin1, Hyun Cheol Kim1, Dal Mo Yang1
1Radiology, East West Neo Medical Center, Kyung Hee University, Seoul, Korea
To investigate an improved contrast of effusion areas in knees, computer simulations were performed to obtain optimum values of two inversion delay times, TI1 and TI2, to suppress both water fluid and fat signals. After then, we applied the DIR sequence to effusion imaging in human knees. The timing to enhance effusion contrast was found to be TI1=2800msec and TI2=220msec. In this study, we compared the imaging contrast of DIR sequence with and without contrast-enhanced proton-density-weighted and T1-weighted imaging sequences. The DIR sequence may be useful to quantify synovium amounts without using a contrast agent in knee.