Guillaume Madelin1, Alexej Jerschow2,
Ravinder R. Regatte1
1Radiology Department, New
York University Medical Center, New York, NY, United States; 2Chemistry
Department, New York University, New York, NY, United States
This preliminary work shows the feasibility of sodium T1 and T2* measurements in vivo on 8 healthy volunteers in 4 different regions (patellar, medial, lateral and condyle) of the articular cartilage at 7T and in a reasonable time for the patient (~35 min for each relaxation time). Sodium relaxation maps are calculated and could be useful as information complementary to the sodium concentration maps for assessing early osteoarthritis (OA) in patients, as T2* and T1 are expected to change with cartilage degeneration. Future improvements may include fluid suppression for reducing partial volume effects and a systematic study of OA patients.