title: Collagene order of articular cartilage by clinical magnetic resonance images and its age dependency.
abstract: The present paper describes a novel method to obtain information on the degree of order of the collagen network of the knee meniscal cartilage by means of a single clinical MRI. Images were obtained from 34 healthy volunteers aged between 6 and 76 years as well as from one patient with clinically-diagnosed arthrosis at the age of 32 and 37 years. A Siemens Vision (1.5 T) MRT with TR=750 ms, TE=50 ms, FoV=160 mm, and Matrix 512x512 was used for this purpose. The MR signal intensities of the cartilage were read out along slices with constant height above the subchondral bone and plotted versus the actual angle to the external magnetic field. The obtained intensity curves were fitted by a model distribution, and the degree of order of the collagen fibers was calculated. For the knee meniscal cartilage, there was an age-dependency of the degree of order and a significant deviation of the volunteer with arthrosis from the normal curve. The results are discussed in view of the arcade model and of a possible use of non-invasive clinical MRT for the detection of early arthrotic changes of cartilage.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Medical Physics and Biophysics, University of Leipzig, Germany. Peter-Seidel@gmx.de
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Seidel
authors.forename: Wilfried
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Gründer
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000375:Aging; D001172:Arthritis, Rheumatoid / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000473:pathology; D002358:Cartilage, Articular / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000254:growth & development*; D002648:Child; D003094:Collagen / Q000737:chemistry*; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008875:Middle Aged; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity
chemical_list: D003094:Collagen