Five-Minute Knee MRI for Simultaneous Morphometry and T2 Relaxometry of Cartilage and Meniscus and for Semiquantitative Radiological Assessment Using Double-Echo in Steady-State at 3T
We have developed a method for knee MRI that can acquire MRI-based biomarkers in a single 5-minute scan.
Osteoarthritis (OA) is a major degenerative disease that affects a large segment of the global population. Despite this prevalence, we still do not fully understand the onset and progression of the disease. MRI-based biomarkers may provide valuable non-invasive quantitative information regarding early changes occurring in OA. Biomarkers such as T2 relaxation times, the morphology of tissues, and semi-quantitative radiological assessment of the entire joint have shown potential for evaluating disease progression. However, acquiring these biomarkers necessitates having images with near-isotropic high resolution and high signal to noise ratios. Conventional methods require approximately 30 minutes of scan time with different scans to acquire such biomarkers. This leads to long uncomfortable scans for patients, additional study costs, and higher likelihood of motion artifacts corrupting the images. To overcome these challenges, we present and validate a MRI method in this study that utilizes the double-echo in steady-state sequence (DESS), which can acquire all aforementioned biomarkers in only a single 5-minute scan.
Chaudhari AS, Black MS, Eijgenraam S, Wirth W, Maschek S, Sveinsson B, Eckstein F, Oei EHG, Gold GE, Hargreaves BA. Five-minute knee MRI for simultaneous morphometry and T2 relaxometry of cartilage and meniscus and for semiquantitative radiological assessment using double-echo in steady-state at 3T. J Magn Reson Imaging. 2018 May;47(5):1328-41.
Our five-minute DESS knee protocol provides both morphological information (DESS S+ and S-), as well as T2 maps.
Bragi Sveinsson is an alumnus of the BMR group