Abstract #0873

Relaxation Parameters of N-Acetyl in Healthy and Osteo-Arthritic Cartilage - An High Resolution Magic Angle Spinning (HR-MAS) Study

Keerthi Shet¹, Sarmad Siddiqui², John Kurhanewicz², Xiaojuan Li¹

¹Radiology, University of California at San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, United States; ²Radiology, University of California at San Francisco, San Francisco , CA, United States

Osteoarthritis (OA) is a degenerative joint disease that results in degradation and gradual loss of articular cartilage. Proteoglycan loss and alteration in the cartilage has been considered an important marker for detecting and measuring the progress of OA. The N-acetyl resonance observed in HR-MAS spectra arises from the proteoglycan content in cartilage. We aim to detect the changes in the mobility of the N-acetyl moiety due to the degradation process that occurs in OA as reflected in the relaxation parameters of the entity (T1 and T2). An increase in T2 relaxation time is observed in case of ex-vivo human osteo-arthritic cartilage samples.