Carmen Taylor1, Ryan Doan1,2, Alexis Dang3, Sharmila Majumdar1, C Benjamin Ma3
1Radiology, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA; 2Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine, Cleveland, OH, USA; 3Orthopedics, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA
In osteoarthritis (OA), high field MRI allows a quantitative measure of volumetric and biochemical changes of cartilage. Human studies have shown that T1r and T2 mapping techniques have the ability to provide highly accurate and quantitative measurements[1] of articular cartilage degeneration in vivo. However, the development of pharmaceuticals to treat OA rests on the characterization of disease states in small animals, and this characterization is best done longitudinally to avoid confounding factors such as individual variation. Towards this end, we have characterized the rabbit anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) transection model of OA longitudinally in vivo over 12 weeks using T1r and T2 mapping techniques, and we have used this model to assess the effects of the common antibiotic doxycycline[2] on OA progression.