Victor Babu Kassey1, Adam Shore1,
Hari Hariharan1, Ganapathy Ramanathan1, Sonia N.
Vallespin2, Thomas Connick1, Anup Singh1,
Ravinder Reddy1
1Center for Magnetic Resonance and
Optical Imaging, Department of Radiology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia,
PA, United States; 2Cardiovascular MR Unit, Royal Brompton and
Harefield NHS Foundation Trust, Chelsea, London, United Kingdom
In
the present work, we determined the age dependent variation of molecular
changes in human knee cartilage via sodium MRI at ultrahigh fields. Aggrecan
has been shown to undergo predominant change in early OA. More than 80% of
population over 65 years of age experience pain due to knee OA. Using sodium
MRI, we investigated the natural, age dependent molecular changes in the healthy
human knee cartilage in vivo. These preliminary results demonstrate that it
is feasible to obtain sodium maps of human knee in-vivo at 7T and quantify
age dependent molecular changes in knee cartilage of healthy human subjects.
Keywords