The composite relaxation metric R2-R1ρ, a potential MR imaging biomarker for detecting early cartilage degeneration, was shown as an incomplete orientation-dependent R2 at 3T. Both R2 and R1ρ mappings of femoral cartilage were performed on two subjects, and the constructed composite metrics were compared to the anisotropic R2 values that were extracted from a single 3D T2W dataset using a newly developed method. The preliminary results demonstrated that the orientation-dependent information derived from two completely different methods was comparable, implying that the diagnostically most relevant information in knee or other joint cartilage could be easily and efficiently obtained.
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