Articular cartilage and surrounding soft tissues in the knee are important to normal joint function. Osteoarthritis (OA) is highly prevalent in the United States [1] and features precocious degeneration of articular cartilage. Effective OA treatments require the ability to detect early degeneration, including mechanical and biochemical changes. Magnetic resonance imaging has shown promise for the detection of early degenerative changes, including various quantitative MRI techniques [2]. Displacement-encoded MRI has the ability to detect changes in mechanical behavior, and such techniques have previously been used in cartilage explants [3] and intact juvenile animal joints [4]. However, the authors are aware of no studies with displacement-encoded MRI of human articular cartilage. Tissue-level displacement patterns could be key to revealing early degeneration in articular cartilage. This study demonstrates for the first time displacement encoding with stimulated echoes (DENSE) in an adult human tibiofemoral joint.
Orientation anisotropy of quantitative MRI parameters in degenerated human articular cartilage
