Comparison of a routine magnetic resonance imaging & T2* mapping of articular cartilage in knee osteoarthritis

Abstract

OA is the most common musculoskeletal disease affecting articular cartilage and other joint tissues. Its impact expected to grow with aging of population, increased obesity, and lack of definitive treatments. With development of new promising pharmacological therapies and advanced surgical methods of cartilage repair, there is a rising demand on early and accurate diagnosis, and development of more sensitive biomarkers. MR imaging provides a highly sensitive non-invasive means to evaluate the articular cartilage, adjacent bones, and soft tissue structures. As it is provides high spatial resolution, soft tissue contrast, and multi-planar facility. There are many cartilage compositional MRI studies, targeted to detect early degeneration and adverse changes in cartilage composition prior to morphological damage. These contrasts with conventional clinical MRI which can detect focal defects diffuse cartilage loss but with a limited ability to detect earlier changes in cartilage composition. T2* mapping is a good alternative because it combines the benefits of biochemical cartilage evaluation and the ability of high-resolution cartilage evaluation without the need for contrast media administration, special hardware, or invasive measures. In our study T2* mapping can detect all cartilage lesions were detected by conventional MRI as well as many other lesions not detected by MRI and detected only by T2* maps.