Elena Vinogradov1, Alexander Ivanishev1,
Aaron K. Grant1, Ron N. Alkalay2, David B. Hackney1,
Robert E. Lenkinski1
1Department of Radiology, Beth Israel
Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, United States; 2Department
of Orthopedic Surgery, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical
School, Boston, MA, United States
Quantitative
assessment of Glycosaminoglycans (GAGs) in the clinical environment can
assist with characterization of disorders associated with cartilage
degradation and loss. Sodium imaging and Chemical Exchange Saturation
Transfer for GAG detection (gagCEST) are two of the several methods for GAG
assessment. Both methods rely on the
endogenous effects. However, sodium imaging suffers from low sensitivity and
requires specialized hardware. GagCEST
is a new method still in the validation phase. Both methods were implemented
on the clinical 3T scanner for the purpose of the validation of the
techniques and the correlation between GAG state in-vivo as assessed using
the two methods.