Quantification of Sodium Relaxation Times and Concentrations as Surrogates of Proteoglycan Content of Patellar CARTILAGE at 3T MRI

Sodium MRI has the potential to depict cartilage health accurately, but synovial fluid can influence the estimation of sodium parameters of cartilage. Therefore, this study aimed to reduce the impact of synovial fluid to render the quantitative compositional analyses of cartilage tissue technically more robust. Two dedicated protocols were applied for determining sodium T1 and T2* relaxation times. For each protocol, data were acquired from 10 healthy volunteers and one patient with patellar cartilage damage. Data recorded with multiple repetition times for T1 measurement and multi-echo data acquired with an additional inversion recovery pulse for T2* measurement were analysed using biexponential models to differentiate longitudinal relaxation components of cartilage (T1,car) and synovial fluid (T1,syn), and short (T2s*) from long (T2l*) transversal relaxation components. Sodium relaxation times and concentration estimates in patellar cartilage were successfully determined: T1,car = 14.5 ± 0.7 ms; T1,syn = 37.9 ± 2.9 ms; c(T1-protocol) = 200 ± 48 mmol/L; T2s* = 0.4 ± 0.1 ms; T2l* = 12.6 ± 0.7 ms; c(T2*-protocol) = 215 ± 44 mmol/L for healthy volunteers. In conclusion, a robust determination of sodium relaxation times is possible at a clinical field strength of 3T to quantify sodium concentrations, which might be a valuable tool to determine cartilage health.

Analisis Variasi Nilai Time Repetition (TR) dan Time Inversion (TI) terhadap Informasi Anatomi Sekuens Turbo Inversion Recovery Magnitude (TIRM) MRI Wrist Joint Dengan Menggunakan MRI 0,3 Tesla

Backgroud: The Turbo Inversion Recovery Magnitude (TIRM) pulse sequence is used to examine wrist joint, especially in the coronal plane. Main parameters of inversion recovery pulse sequence are time repetition (TR), time echo (TE) and time inversion (TI). This study aims to analyze the variation of time repetition (TR) and time inversion (TI) on anatomical information using TIRM pulse sequence on wrist joint MR imaging with 0,3 tesla.Methods: This study was a quantitave experimental study with a linear regression test. This study was conducted in Radiology Department of Banyumas hospital using twenty serial images from only one patient with 10 variation of TR (3000 ms, 3200ms, 3400 ms, 3600 ms, 3800 ms, 4000 ms, 4200 ms, 4400 ms, 4600 ms, 4800 ms) and 10 variation of TI (70 ms, 75 ms, 80 ms, 85 ms, 90 ms, 95 ms, 100 ms, 105 ms, 110 ms, 115 ms). Image assessed by only one respondent.Results: There was no significant influence of variation of TR and TI on anatomical information. Significant number was 0,240 which is bigger than p value (0,05). TR and TI variation affected just only 15,5% to anatomical information, 84,5% was influenced by other variables that unconfirmed in this study.Conclusion: There was differences of anatomical information in MRI wrist joint sequence coronal T2WI-FSE fat suppression between SPIR and SPAIR with a significance level of p value 0.001 (p 0.05). SPAIR is the method which is clearer to show the anatomical information of wrist joint.