A Model-Based Approach for Fast T2 Mapping of Articular Cartilage

Chuan Huang¹, Mihra S. Taljanovic², Maria I. Altbach²

Quantitative T2 measurements have been explored for evaluating articular cartilage and a correlation between increasing T2 values and cartilage degeneration has been observed. Conventional multi-echo imaging techniques have been used for cartilage T2 mapping. However, the acquisition of data with adequate spatial resolution requires long scanning times. Reducing acquisition time is generally done at the expense of temporal resolution (i.e., small number of TE points), lower spatial resolution, lower SNR, or reduced number of slices. In this work, we demonstrate the ability to use a Principal Component Model-based algorithm to reconstruct high resolution T2 maps of cartilage from highly undersampled radial Fast Spin-Echo (FSE) data, hence achieving multi-fold acquisition time reduction.