Authors: Erika Schneider Grace H Lo Gretchen Sloane Lynn Fanella David J Hunter Charles B Eaton Timothy E McAlindon
Publish Date: 2010/05/07
Volume: 40, Issue: 1, Pages: 95-103
Abstract
Changes in weightbearing subchondral bone are central to osteoarthritis OA pathophysiology Using MR knee trabecular bone is typically assessed in the axial plane however partial volume artifacts limit the utility of MR methods for femorotibial compartment subchondral bone analysis Obliquecoronal acquisitions may enable direct visualization and quantification of the expected increases in femorotibial subchondral trabecular boneMR acquisition parameters were first optimized at 3 Tesla Thereafter five volunteers underwent axial and coronal exams of their right knee Each image series was evaluated visually and quantitatively An anatomically standardized regionofinterest was placed on both the medial and lateral tibial plateaus of all coronal slices containing subchondral bone Mean and maximum marrow signal was measured and “bone signal” was calculatedThe MR acquisition had spatial resolution 02 × 02 × 10 mm and acquisition time 105 min The two asymptomatic knees exhibited prominent horizontal trabeculae in the tibial subchondral bone while the one confirmed OA knee had disorganized subchondral bone and absent horizontal trabeculae The subchondral bone signal was 8–14 higher in both compartments of the OA knee than the asymptomatic kneesThe weightbearing femorotibial subchondral trabecular bone can be directly visualized and changes quantified in the coronaloblique plane Qualitative and quantitative assessments can be performed using the resultant images and may provide a method to discriminate between the healthy and OA knees These methods should enable a quantitative evaluation of the role of weightbearing subchondral bone in the natural history of knee OA to be undertakenSharmila Majumdar PhD Department of Radiology UCSF encouraged this work and provided study advice and the 15 T trabecular bone MR images GL was supported by the American College of Rheumatology/Research and Education Foundation and the Arthritis Foundation through the Arthritis Investigator Award The research of CE GS and LF as well as use of the OAI 3 T MR system at Memorial Hospital of Rhode Island were funded in part by a contract from NIAMS/NIH N01AR22262 DJH was supported by an ARC Future Fellowship
Keywords: