Ashley Williams1, Yongxian Qian2,
Constance R. Chu1
1Cartilage Restoration Laboratory,
University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, United States; 2Magnetic
Resonance Research Center, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, United
States
This
work demonstrates the feasibility of in
vivo 3-D UTE-T2* mapping of cartilage and examines
the sensitivity of UTE-T2* to early cartilage
degeneration compared to arthroscopic grading as the standard. UTE-T2*
and standard T2 knee images were acquired on 10 subjects at 3T.
Deep zone UTE-T2* values were significantly higher in
softened cartilage compared to healthy (arthroscopic grade 1vs0,
p<0.01). Superficial zone UTE-T2*
showed a trend for higher values in softened tissue compared to healthy
(p=0.17). Standard T2
values showed no differences between healthy and softened cartilage.
UTE-T2* mapping captures signal from deep cartilage
better than standard T2 .
Keywords