Won C. Bae1, Sheronda Statum1,
Reni Biswas2, Robert L. Sah2, Jiang Du1,
Christine B. Chung1
1Radiology, University of
California, San Diego, San Diego, CA, United States; 2Bioengineering,
University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, United States
Disorders of the temporomandibular joint (TMJ) may involve biomechanical weakening of the TMJ disc. TMJ tissues have inherently short T2 values and their quantitative evaluation benefits from ultrashort time-to-echo (UTE) MR techniques. This study evaluated relation between MR properties (conventional SE T2, UTE T2* and UTE T1rho) and biomechanical indentation stiffness of human TMJ discs. For certain range of indentation stiffness values, UTE T1rho correlated strongly with indentation stiffness, while SE T2 values correlated more weakly. Sensitivity of UTE T1rho values to biomechanical properties make it useful longitudinal evaluation of TMJ discs.